


The Love We Feel in the 2nd Dimension

by DistinctiveUsername, TaetonJaxon



Series: The Love We Feel [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Across the 2nd Dimension, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst, Cats, Crack, Dimension Travel, Dogs, Duelling, Epic, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Friends to Lovers, Gay denial, Gen, Gods, Humor, Just Bros, M/M, Meme that went too far, Memes, Minecraft: Story Mode, Multi, No Porn, No Smut, Original Character(s), Overwatch - Freeform, Pantheon - Freeform, Resistance, Romance, Sequal, Team, Team as Family, The Love We Feel, The Love We Feel on Wattpad by DistinctiveUsername, War, dimensional war, sin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-08-11 02:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 43
Words: 46,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistinctiveUsername/pseuds/DistinctiveUsername, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaetonJaxon/pseuds/TaetonJaxon
Summary: It has been two years since the most romantic moment in human history, the marriage between Junkrat and Mei, and the supposed death of the beloved robot Bastion. Two years of searching, on the part of the tenacious but mentally unsound Emily, as well as two years of history within the rest of Overwatch, has brought an odd start to our tale.It begins with the creation of an odd portal, one that would prove to be a gateway between worlds, and that would bring people from across the world to one nexus at Watchpoint: Gibraltar to manage it. This portal would prove to be quite the troublesome thing, and while it would bring Emily and the rest of Overwatch closer and closer to closing in on the unfound Bastion, it would also bring them closer to the enemies of good in a dimension that was no longer sound, as well as old enemies that are about as dead as Bastion himself.This be a world of gods, that of magic and technology in a war for the universe, where all things hang in the balance. And it's up to the good agents of Overwatch to not only rescue Bastion, but to defeat the agents of evil and save the universe itself.





	1. It Begins Anew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7wfiEJcdU

It has been 2 years since the most romantic moment in human history. The marriage between Jamison {A.K.A. Junkrat, Junkboi} Fawkes and Mei Ling Zhou {now Fawkes} quickly trumped the original record holder of that one Lúcio concert.

Many momentous occasions happened since the marriage. First of all, Talon and Overwatch finally forgave each other for the completely unexplained beef they had and learned to work as a team. Things from that point on went a lot smoother. 

Doomfist and Ana became co-leaders, though Ana had powerful granny powers and kinda overshadowed Doomfister. Sombra became the official hackerman, her job was to make sure all the hate mail online went away; by force. Moira just kinda moved into Winston’s lab without his permission but he learned to live with it. Reaper and Junkrat just went on memeing like usual. 

Besides that, the love could be felt throughout the Watchpoint. Of course Junkrat and Mei were the most powerful love that could exist, and they flaunted it {not in the bad way} so often that it was a miracle that the super singles like Winston and Sombra didn’t kill themselves years ago. But other relationships were also flourishing, like Pharah and Mercy. They had recently gotten married and had just got back from their honeymoon and were being the best lesbian beans around.

The most important thing though… was the child! After their marriage, Junkrat and Mei had a baby named Jamie Jr. He was a very special child, and not just because he was the product of true love {and possibly on the spectrum}, but because he was tested on genetically. A few weeks after his birth, Winston and Moira offered to make Jamie’s childhood years go by in days. At first, Mei and Junkrat thought that they were going to take care of the kid for a few days so that they could get some sleep, but they were wrooooooooong. 

Jamie Jr. aged about 10 years in the span of about 5 days, and befitting his newfound growth, he was given massive mental training; like school times 100 but without any of the boring parts. He then had the body of a 10 year old and mind of a 15 year old without basically any time passing. Mei and Junkrat were peeved about this, but at least they didn’t have to change any diapers.

Mei was contemplating all that had happened those past two years, but she put those thoughts out of her head. It was her special day after all. She was hanging out in the “Straight Girls Nail Painting Station™” with Ana, Mercy (despite her gay she was allowed) and Sombra. She sighed, as she knew she’d be with them until late tonight; when her lover’s surprise was complete.

Ana broke the giddy silence, “So, do we have anything to talk about?”

“¿Do you think my nails look better than Moira’s?” Sombra asked holding out her freshly painted purple nails so that everyone else could see. 

“No, we all know that’s impossible,” Ana shut Sombra down. 

Sombra was disappointed, but not surprised. Despite her hate for Moira, she could always admire a good nail job deep down. It was well known by many nail scientists that Moira’s paint job was the best around, and there was no changing that.

Mercy felt bad for Sombra and said, “But you’re getting there.”

Sombra nodded. “So help me God I’ll be the first one to beat her.” She felt the determination flow through her. 

Mei wasn’t paying attention to any of this awkward conversation, as she was contemplating what could possibly surprise her after 2 years of being married to Junkrat. She looked at the clock; 9:30 AM. She had a long time to wait.


	2. Searching

During all the excitement for the special day, Emily sat in Sombra’s computer lab, complete with a set of Sombra® Brand computers. In recent days, she often sat in this room for hours at a time, not even stopping to eat or use the restroom. Despite all of the happiness and love this day represented, Emily found herself in a sulky mood. It was of course because this was also the anniversary of when her best friend Bastion sacrificed himself to save her and everyone else from a black hole. 

As she sat sulking, Tracer quietly entered the room. She stood behind Emily for a solid 10 minutes waiting to be noticed naturally. It took so long Tracer reverted to the t-pose against her will. When she noticed that she was doing the t-pose, she decided to actually alert Emily to her presence.

“Hey love, any progress?” she asked with concern and fear. 

Emily’s eyes finally stopped being glazed over, and she sounded like she had just woken up. “Zzz… sch, ugh. Good morning, what did you say baby?” she asked sleepily but happily. 

“I asked if you had made any progress on the search.” Tracer was relieved to find that despite her sulkiness, Emily seemed to have been happy to see her.

“Hm? No, the internet has nothing about it. I’ve been looking for a few weeks, I think it’s time I face the facts that he’s just not on there,” Emily started to look awake and slightly annoyed. 

Tracer put on her fake sad face, “Oh I’m sorry baby. I guess the search is over.” She was secretly happy that Emily had given up the search for a backup file for Bastion’s mind, as it had almost driven Emily mad. 

Emily looked at Tracer with a confused expression, “Well I never said the search was over, I just said he wasn’t on the internet. I’ve been going over some of the notes Winston gave me on his black hole canon and the possible aftereffects of firing it, and I think I have another lead as to where Bastion might have survived somewhere.”

Tracer then realized that the search actually had driven Emily mad. “Babe, he went into a black hole. I don’t know much about black holes but I know one thing; you don’t survive that,” she said.

A frown began to form on Emily’s forehead. “First of all it wasn’t even a real black hole; and he’s an Omnic, there are tons of ways he could have saved his consciousness that we would have no idea about.” She had began to get mad at her girlfriend for her statements. 

Despite that, Tracer persisted. She blinked over the desk and read off some of Winston’s notes. “Magnetic cognition? Singularity imprinting? 2nd dimensional transportation‽” She said the last item on the list with particular disbelief. “You’ve got to admit, love, that these things seem a bit preposterous.” 

Emily’s frown became “get out” levels of saltiness, and Tracer realized she had overstepped her boundaries. She tried to salvage the situation, “But that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t happen.” 

“Look I understand that you don’t understand or particularly agree with me trying to get Bastion back, so you don’t need to be polite,” she said. Emily turned back to the computer screen. “I get what you’re trying to do, but I’m still just as determined as before. I know he’s out there. I can feel it.” And she could. She could literally sense him out in the deep pockets of the universe, but just not where he was at. 

Tracer realized she was getting nowhere in her well-meaning arguments, and decided just to leave. She left a piece of cinnamon toast for Emily before she left, with a little note saying how much she loved her. 

Even though she was mad, Emily couldn’t help but have that make her feel better; cinnamon toast, some sugar, a whole stick of butter, her favorite. She ate the cinnamon and sugar toast and felt a little better about her life. At that moment Ganymede flew into the room.

“.... --- .-- .----. ... / .. - / --. --- .. -. --. /” Ganymede chirped. Emily had started taking care of Ganymede ever since Bastion’s death. She had learned morse code in the past two years, and had also learned that Ganymede understood English as well as basic science. Ganymede had become one of her research partners in the past couple of years, because it wanted Bastion back as much as she did. Ganymede was the least helpful though, and would often poop on research notes without noticing. Every once and a while though it would find something useful and bring it to their attention. Winston was probably the most helpful, but Emily had a hard time in the beginning translating Winston’s Chinese. She got better at it though. But some of her favorite research partners were Junkrat and Jamie Jr, who she had become fast friends with. In fact she was Jamie’s god-parent and honorary aunt. Junkrat and Jamie were helpful and fun to work with, because Jamie was focused (on memes) and Junkrat was funny (he still couldn’t read, even after Winston taught him to).

But she was talking to the bird and not them and she had grown to love too. “Not the best,” she said scratching its back. Just then a notification played on the Sombra® Brand computer that sounded like Sombra saying “Boop”. Emily sat up in the chair, and Ganymede snapped to attention. “Well nevermind, it seems we have a hit on my lead.”


	3. He Returns

Reaper was waiting on a cliff near the Watchpoint for the arrival of his best friend Genji, as today was the day set for his return. Genji had gone off in a soul-searching journey for a few months because Zenyatta and Redyatta both stopped being important to the story and in turn ceased to exist. He took this journey to improve his meme game, as he found out through a series of unfortunate events that his memes were 70 years dead.

The series of unfortunate events that led to Genji finding out that he was a fucking normie went like this. Firstly, Talon joined Overwatch, giving it a 30cc dose of sassiness. Secondly, Moira and Genji started an anime club. Lastly, Moira did the sass and Genji found out about his lack of a meme game. He felt heartbroken after that moment, and vowed to meme harder and faster than any other. That’s when he decided to leave. 

But now he was coming back! It’d been months since Reaper actually had fun in the anime club, as only Genji shared his love for cutesy and also kinda edgy animes. Kawaii Death Desu was hell without someone to love it with him. 

Reaper stood on the cliff, doing his anniversary dance trying to be as edgy as possible, but he was failing. He just wasn’t an edgy bastard anymore. That’s when he noticed the almost unnoticeable ninja like wind and he turned around. Sure enough, his best friend stood behind him. Genji dabbed.

“Hey, bud! Nice to see you again” Genji said in his silky smooth cyborg voice. 

Reaper stood there in surprise, as Genji looked totally different. Genji was in his Nomad skin, and Reaper had never seen that skin because nobody ever equips the Nomad skin.

“Hey man! Why do you look like that?”

Genji looked down at himself in surprise, “Oh heck, give me a second.” He went into the t-pose for a second and he was back in his normal skin. “Sorry that happens when I’m on soul-searching journeys,” he said, “I’m all good now.”

Reaper was relieved.

“Anyway, how was the trip?” Reaper asked. Reaper and Genji had begun walking towards the Watchpoint now. 

“Oh it was fun, I went to Nepal for a while before the hive mind rose against me, then I traveled to Blizzard World and had a fun time for a while before I came back.” Genji dabbed again, and Reaper looked at him with a face of pure disbelief behind the mask. Reaper had always wanted to go to Blizzard World.

“I think my memes have improved since I left,” Genji said satisfyingly.

Reaper looked at his friend in confusion. “If that’s so why do you still dab?” he asked crossing his arms while walking which is surprisingly difficult. 

Genji had the look under his mask of a person who knew what they were doing. “I’m ironically doing the dab, even though I know it’s a dead meme,” he said. 

It was there that Reaper stopped. “You’ve harnessed the power of pure irony‽” It was well known by memers that ironic use of memes was the quintessential quality in a good memer. “Good progress my friend.”

“Lol thanks. How’s Aunty Moira been?” Genji asked. 

“Not great, she ended up experimenting on the kid to pass the time,” Reaper reaplied.

“How unfortunate,” Genji re-replied.

They teleported down the cliff using their edgy weeb powers.


	4. The Plan

Jamie Jr. entered his parent’s room to find his father laying on the ground with a loose throng of (blank) paper all around him. Jamie wondered why eternal screaming could be heard all around the room, but it turned out that his father was making the noise as well as laying on the floor. He came in to ask when they were going to meet up with Aunty Emily, completely forgetting that it was his parents anniversary because lol why should he know that. The state of his father changed his question to what the hell was wrong with his papa. 

He stood above his father for just about 3 nanoseconds before Junkrat noticed him. “Thank Roadhog you’re here! I need your help!“ He said these words with a sound of complete desperation.

“What do you need from me dad?” Jamie Jr. said in a high voice with the ungodly combination of Junkrat and Mei’s accents. 

Junkrat replied, “Well it’s noon right now, and I have until 8 o'clock to come up with and execute a massive 2 year anniversary surprise; and I haven’t done jack yet.” 

Jamie Jr. was confused about many things, “Wait I thought you were the best at planning things.”

Junkrat scoffed, “I guess I’m out of practice.”

“What did you do last year?” Jamie asked.

“I blew up the cliff to make it look like Mei’s face so that in 300 years when we’re dug up by the Martians she will be known as a queen,” Junkrat replied.

“Oh. So you can’t do that again,” Jamie sumized. 

Jamie Jr. thought upon the extensive training he had in throwing parties (Winston thought it would be important that Jamie have party skills so it comprised most of his education). Eventually, he came upon an idea and said, “Well if I know one thing, the best anniversary parties have a combined version of the two people’s interests.”

Junkrat scowled. He still wasn’t used to how well read Jamie Jr. sounded. Junkrat himself had only just recently learned how to read (Correction: He could read one book, The Princess and the Frog, but that was it, more of a situation of memorization than actual reading). He was almost 30 and he still wasn’t as smart as his literal two month old. But he considered Jamie’s words either way.

“Hmm, well I like explosions. And Mei likes a lot of different things. I’m pretty sure one of those things is cake,” He said as he sat on his bed with confusion, “But how do we combine those two things?”

Jamie Jr. looked at his feet for a while and finally said, “Exploding cake maybe?” He did Reaper’s shrug emote. 

Junkrat ruffled his kid’s hair, “You’re the perfect son you know?”


	5. 15% of Overwatch are Weebs

“Alright settle down you hooligans, the 33rd meeting of the Overwatch anime club is now in session,” Moira said to the several people sitting down in front of her.

In front of her sat some of the weebiest people she had ever met. Of course, her favorite nephew Reaper was there, who had only just come out about his love for anime a few years ago. Genji was there, and so was his brother Hanzo. Having real Japanese people in the club made it feel legit. But there was also an odd addition to the anime club, Hanzo’s lover McCree. 

“We must welcome our full member to the club.” Moira stated, “Konichiwa, McCree.” 

The rest of the club konichiwaed at McCree, all with perfect pronunciation because they were those types of weebs. 

“‘Coe knee chee wah’ t’ y’all as well,” McCree said with terrible American pronunciation.

Moira cringed slightly, but she got over it. She remembered having the same problem with Reaper. “Alright, with formalities aside, down to business,” Moira steepled her hands on her leader stand. 

“First off, the ceremonious waifu war” Moira began as if reading off a list.

Her fellow compatriots argued back and forth between one loli character or another. The only person who didn’t seem to be immersing himself in the argument was Genji.

Genji was a little depressed. Reaper had told him that the anime club had stagnated slightly under Moira’s leadership (not his exact words), but Genji never expected it to be this bad. It felt so formal and rigid, so unlike the anime club in its infancy. In the old times, it was just Reaper, Moira and him. It was a barrel of XD’s.

Not that he felt that his brother and McCree were boring or anything, it was Moira. She had always been obsessed with keeping things orderly and structured; none of the vintage anime figurines were allowed out of the alphabetically organized glass case, that kind of thing. Now that she was fully in charge of the club, it became apparent that she ran it like a well oiled machine. It felt to Genji like all of the life had been drained from the club. 

Genji wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, and he realized that the club had devolved into an organized hell. They were listing their favorite animes in order of how relatable the main character was. He had quite enough by that point. 

He stood up in the middle of McCree’s oration about Gintama and said pointing at Moira, “You’ve destroyed our club with organization.”

Moira was confused. She replied, “But is this not how things in a club are supposed to be? Organized and proper.”

“Not at the cost of memes,” he said. 

“You dare challenge me on how I run my club.”

“YOUARE CLUB‽ We created this club together, or do you not remember‽”

Moira fell silent. Reaper was obviously keeping very silent to keep from angering anybody else. McCree was quietly whispering to Hanzo, “Is it always like this?” 

Moira opened her mouth again, “Well, I shall not have dissidence in my club. If you want things back to the unruly way they were before, fine. But first, you must defeat me in a weeb off.”

Every member that had been there for more than a few days gasped (this includes Moira for some reason). They all knew the horrible ramifications of a full weeb off. Sure they had played with the idea, but it had always been in fun. But Moira had just issued the most sacred challenge the anime club had.

Genji got over his surprise. He said, “I’ll take you on any time. Tomorrow at high noon sound good?”

Moira steepled her hands and replied, “Of course, just be sure to be ready. I want this to be a fair fight.”

Reaper was just sitting in the lawn chair he bought at K-Mart trying not to decompose right then and there. He feared for both his favorite aunt and his new best friend for reasons that will soon become obvious.

The anime club ended with McCree finishing his Gintama rant and telling Genji afterward that the words High Noon were copyrighted by McCree Inc.


	6. Winston’s Genetic Terrors

Junkrat and Jamie Jr. were in Torb’s newly redecorated kitchen creating a full blueprint of their exploding cake. Torb was happy to help with the cake and the exploding, seeing as Jamie Jr. was his godson and all. Jamie Jr. had two Godparents, both people Junkrat and Mei credited with saving their lives. Torb was one, Emily was the other. Surprisingly Tracer wasn’t a part of that group, but honestly she didn’t even care. 

“There. It’s done!” Junkrat smiled with black marker all over his hands and face like a child. He had just finished the blueprint that would probably get him arrested in any other situation. 

“When will the cake be done uncle Torb?” Jamie Jr. asked.

Torb scratched his beard as he looked over the finished blueprint and said, “Ï cöüld gët ït dönë ïn ä mättër öf sëcönds wïth my möltën cörë... büt Ï’d räthër këëp my kïtchën fröm blöwïng üp ägäïn. Gïvë më 3 höürs.”

Junkrat beamed, “Great! We still have the other half of the plan to get to. Jamie if you’d come with me.”

They walked out of the kitchen and into the bedroom hallway. Everybody's doors had their name on them. Winston’s room was at the very back of the hallway with edgy teen “keep out” and “no girls allowed” signs. Junkrat lightly tapped on his door.

An almost infinite amount of noise immediately followed Junkrat’s knock. Junkrat knew there was a 50% chance that the door would probably break down to reveal either a very angry gorilla or a genetic monstrosity. Neither of those things happened, and the door was still firmly closed. 

Junkrat just decided to do the thing he was best at and blow down the door. When he did so he found Winston wrestling an unholy beast of ungodly origin. Winston proceeded to punch it right in the face as hard as he could, and looked at its now dead and mangled visage. 

He said under his breath, “Ugh, that’s the third one I had to put down this week.” He suddenly noticed the two Jamisons standing in his exploded doorway. “Hello there,” he said with surprise, “what are you two doing here?” 

Junkrat clapped his hands together and said, “Well I need your help setting up decorations for the anniversary party.” 

Winston made a face like “Oh really? I’m sorry I actually have something going on right now,” and said about the same out loud. 

Junkrat proceeded to cover his son’s ears and said, “You kinda owe us after literally genetically destroying our kid.”

Winston groaned, “Ugh why can’t anyone else do it? I have more terrors to create!”

Junkrat said, “Because basically everybody else is just trying to keep Mei occupied.”

Winston sighed in defeat, “Alright, I guess creating another horror from beyond can wait. It is kind of the least I can do. ”

All three of them went to the Overwatch ballroom (yes they had a ballroom get over it). Junkrat gave the orders for decorations and such. Winston super jumped up to the ballroom ceiling to get the streamers just right. Jamie Jr. was in charge of all of the tables and chairs. 

It took them a few hours to get everything just right to Junkrat’s plan. As soon as Winston was dismissed, Torb came from the kitchen.

“Yöü mïght wänt tö cömë änd sëë thïs,” Torbjörn said with absolute pride in his voice and a tear in his eye.


	7. Junkrat's Surprise

Mei could wait no longer. She had had enough of her friends by that point. They were out for a night on the town in Gibraltar trying to make the most of being out of the base for something other than a mission. Mei wanted to return home so much that it literally took all three of them to keep her from getting in a taxi. 

But eventually 9 o'clock came, the time of Junkrat’s Surprise, and they headed home. They were already in fancy dress from a night on the town, so they didn't need to change when they got home. Mei had been preparing for this the whole day.

They got home and at the Watchpoint door was Rein in full tuxedo form. He even took off his armor for the occasion. “This way ladies.” Reinhardt said. He made a wink at Ana, who promptly blushed. 

Mei and her assorted friends followed Rein to the ballroom. The doors were just at the end of a hall, and Mei could feel the excitement in the air even from where she was standing. Rein stood in front of the doors, and opened them slowly. Light came bright from the doorway. Mei was indeed surprised.

In the middle of the room on a table was a 5 layer cake that far exceeded even the one they had at their wedding. One half of it was frosted blue with a little Elsa figurine on the top, the other was frosted red with a fuse at the top. And standing in front of the cake was her husband, Junkrat.

She noticed everyone else in Overwatch there too, but she legitimately didn’t care about them for the moment. She started running over to Junkrat. She hugged him so hard that he almost died again, this time from love. 

Mei had actually started to tear up a little, and she said, “Oh Junkrat, you didn’t have to do all this. I would have been happy with you blowing up the cliff face again.” 

Junkrat held Mei, and replied saying “Oh you know me, I’m very creative. And you haven’t even seen everything yet! Look up.”

Mei looked up and saw that the streamers actually said something. It said ILY BBY I’D MARRY YOU AGAIN IF I COULD UWU. Mei squeezed Junkrat so hard he actually died again, luckily he had a guy on the other side of death so he didn’t actually die.

Mei started to actually cry tears of joy, “You are such a dork sometimes you know.”

He held up a finger, “Still not done. HIT IT TORB!”

Just then the cake exploded. For a second Mei was extremely angry, but then she noticed the cake was already pre-cut and the explosion sent the cake cubes all flying onto plates, not a single one hit the floor (although a few hit the wall and the ceiling). It had to have taken some simple geometry to get all that to work. 

She proceeded to punch Junkrat in the stomach. He recoiled from sheer surprise, and Mei screamed, “Would it kill you not to blow something up for once in your life!”

“I will never not blow things up for as long as I live, you should know that by now sweetheart,” Junkrat stammered. And at that moment everybody in the room cheered and clapped and got around to their amazing cake


	8. Incident at the Anniversary Party

The surprising nature of the party went on as Mei was shocked again by everybody being in a fancy dress and actually being there, even Winston (whom she was astonished could even fit in a suit let alone that he would show up in the first place). He kept screaming “party mode engaged” to the point where it stopped being funny and comical and started being ear-breakingly annoying.

Everybody else seemed as happy as she felt. Jamie Jr was in the corner talking to Torb about how he had never been up past 8:30 PM and that he felt really proud of himself. 

Jack Morrison (A.K.A. Soldier 76 or Dad) was just sitting at a table completely alone, saying “I’m not your father” at precise 30 second intervals. Mei really didn’t pay any mind to him because he just wasn’t the type of person to demand attention, on purpose or otherwise.

The only person who seemed down was Emily. Mei and Emily were just acquaintances and they didn’t know each other extremely well, but it was sad to see her sad, so she decided to start a conversation. 

“Hiya Emily!” Mei said as she entered Emily and Tracer’s table. 

“Hmm?” Emily looked up from picking at her cake with her fork. “Oh… hi Mei,” she said. She put on a pleasant smile, more to be polite than actual happiness. “Lovely party,” she said. 

Mei was an expert at reading emotions, she had to do it often enough in this hormonal cesspool called Overwatch. She knew that Emily didn’t actually want to be at the party. Mei put on her kindly mother face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

Emily’s smile turned to a frown. How had Mei read her emotions to well? It had took years to develop that trademark British “hiding emotions through politeness and silence” thing and Mei had broken it within a few seconds. She had to admit her emotions now that she had been found out. 

“There’s just someplace I’d rather be right now,” she sighed.

Mei understood. She had often been at parties she had no desire to be at but had to stay there just because “it’s grandpa’s funeral.”

“Oh that’s no problem. We don’t want you to be here if you don’t feel comfortable here,” Mei replied kindly but with weird words. 

“Really? You’re very kind.” Emily then proceeded to make what sounded like random bird whistling. 

Suddenly a yellow bird descended from the heavens and landed on Emily’s shoulder. She spoke to it under her breath, but Mei heard. 

“You have the plan right?” She asked the bird.

“--- ..-. / -.-. --- ..- .-. ... . .-.-.- / .-.. . - .----. ... / --. --- / --. . - / -- -.-- / -... --- ..” the bird tweeted in return.

“Alright, everything's packed. Let’s go girl.”

“.. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .... .- ...- . / .- / --. . -. -.. . .-. / ..-. --- --- .-..” the bird tweeted loudly and angrily.

“Sorry,” Emily replied. 

Then they both left. This all happened while Mei was still sitting at the table. She was so utterly stunned that she lost track of time. She was only there for a few seconds though, before Tracer came over to the table.

“Hey babe! I brought the punch you wanted...” she stopped when she realized Emily wasn’t there.

“Hey Mei... do you know where Emily is?” Tracer asked with actual worry.

Mei’s shell shocked look faded, “She just left with a bird.” 

Tracer looked even more worried. “How long ago was this!”

“Only like a few seconds or minutes, I think.”

“You didn’t give her permission to leave did you!”

“I did.”

“Oh God Mei, you don’t know what you’ve done! A British person can only leave a party they’re invited to if the host releases them.”

“Like a vampire but opposite?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that a bad thing?” Mei asked.

“Because for the past 2 years she’s been looking for Bastion, and basically all day today she’s been packing science-y looking things that look dangerous. This party was my last ditch effort to figure out what was going on before she left.”

Mei’s face darkened. Bastion had died in the black hole 2 years ago. It was the worst part of her wedding and that was saying something. Junkrat had been helping out with the search so she wasn’t really worried about Emily being crazy or anything. Her husband would probably tell her if someone was more crazy than he was (he was a jealous boi when it came to insanity). 

“I’m sorry I guess, but I think you might be overreacting,” Mei said. 

“I don’t think so,” Tracer said, “I didn’t like the look on her face. I need to find Winston,” she ran off to find him.

It wasn’t difficult. She ran up to him and pulled him away from his riveting voice line off between him and Soldier 76. 

Winston was always happy to see a true friend who didn’t question his weird and sometimes world ending experiments. He was not so happy to see the look of terror on her face, that usually meant something really bad had happened. It took a lot to shake Tracer, mostly because she had seen all of Winston’s more horrific experiments.

“What’s wrong?” Winston asked.

“Winston buddy, do you still have access to those chips you put in all the non-active members? You know the ones you put in them because you considered them pets,” Tracer asked in reply. 

“Cough-cough…” he coughed suspiciously. “Not so loud they might hear you and make me take them away,” he said this a little closer to Tracer’s ear

“Oh of course. But can you still track them?” Tracer asked quietly, playing along. 

“Yes, I still have access to them.”

“Can you get me a fix on Emily’s location? Pretty please.”

“Sure.” Winston pulled out a little screen that looked like a dog bone and typed some things in with his enormous gorilla hands. 

After like 2 minutes Winston said, “Got something. She’s apparently in a trash can on the intersection of 36th and O in Gibraltar… oh, that’s stupid. She must have dug it out from under her fingernail.”

Tracer sat down at the nearest table. She could barely hear Soldier saying “I’m not your father” through her worry. To Tracer, Emily was unhinged and probably weaponized. 

And there was absolutely no way to track her.


	9. Holographic Babysitting

Emily had just thrown her tracker chip in the trash. She found it in her fingernail years ago but never screwed with it because she didn’t have to and it might’ve been useful. It was dug out easily with the hooky thing that comes with nail clippers sometimes.

She couldn’t have anybody following her tonight. She needed time and no distractions. As much as she loved Tracer, Emily knew she’d just get in the way. She also didn’t know that Tracer thought her insane enough to escape with weapons, which was certainly not the case. All she had in her modest backpack was a few scientific instruments that could only kill people if you had to explain how they worked. 

She made absolutely sure she wasn’t followed. She had even sent Ganymede to scout ahead to make sure she wasn’t noticed by any passersby. She checked her watch, 10 PM. Perfect, she thought. 

Ganymede made the all clear noise down the alleyway she was situated in. Emily quietly made her way down the backstreet to a bus stop. She looked at the bus map. It would take her by where she needed to be in about 30 minutes or so. Eventually, the bus came, and she climbed on.

Emily quietly made her way to the back seat with Ganymede perched on her shoulder. 30 minutes, she’d need something to do. She opened up a magazine because she couldn’t be on her phone, lest Sombra be able to find her through her new Bitmoji. 

Suddenly in the seat next to hers, a voice came. It sounded like an unholy combination of an Australian man and a Chinese woman. The words that the voice uttered were, “Wow, that was easy.”

Emily turned her head to see Jamie Jr. sitting, eyes wide staring at her. He said, “Like I literally just sat on the bus for a minute and found you.”

Emily was flustered, and a million questions filled her mind but the most important one was, “How did you get your parents to give you permission to leave the Watchpoint?”

Jamie Jr. continued to smile as if he had something to hide, which he really didn’t. “I stole one of Winston’s holograph drones,” he pointed directly up to a drone with a projector crudely duct taped onto it. How Emily didn’t notice the loud wiring is a mystery. 

Emily was surprised by her own failure, but she had more important questions, “Are you going to tell them where I am?” she asked. 

“No… but only if you take me with you to wherever you’re going.” Jamie said. 

“Alright, but don’t tell anyone until I come back,” Emily said.

“Yay! But where were you going anyway?” Jamie’s hologram asked. 

“There’s an old abandoned Dairy Queen down this bus route. I found traces of dimensional residue there a couple of hours ago and I want to see if I can recreate the source,” Emily said fastly.

“Cool!” Jamie was happy that he got to go on a mission (even though it wasn’t a real mission and he wasn’t even really there) with his favorite aunt. Emily was Jamie’s favorite (and really only) aunt mostly because she and her dad were good friends and she gave him chocolate when he researched with her. 

Emily smiled a little. She always liked the little guy, he was cute and so excited about everything. Even though she didn’t want any distractions she felt cool with having him along. 

Jamie was kicking his feet up and down like the child he was and asked, “When are we going to get there?” like the child he was. 

“30 minutes or so,” she said. 

And they did get there in about 30 minutes or so. When they stepped out of the bus (I mean Emily did Jamie just kind of floated out) they found the Dairy Queen in ruins.

“What happened here?” Jamie asked.

“Nobody really knows, but at some point between the first fanfiction and the second all the Dairy Queens in the world all simultaneously went out of business for no explainable reason,” Emily explained.

“Maybe because they lost all the free ad revenue the first fanfiction gave them,” Jamie suggested. 

“Possibly.” Emily said. Then they both went inside.

It looked even worse on the inside. Tables were overturned, chairs were broken perfectly in half somehow, and the menu was so broken the Chocolate Xtreme Brownie Reese's™ Oreo™ mini Blizzard® looked like it was spelled in a foreign language. 

“Hold this for me please,” Emily said handing Jamie her backpack. Unfortunately, she forgot that Jamie was currently in ghost form and that he couldn’t hold all her expensive equipment. She grred at her own incompetence once again (she wasn’t very experienced in the field be patient with her).

She picked her literal millions of dollars worth of equipment off the ground and took something out of her pack, it looked like a silver Hershey’s bar with all its buttons and such. She began holding it up in the air like a geiger counter.

Suddenly it started beeping like the Ghostbuster PKE meter. The beeping got faster as Emily walked around the Dairy Queen. She walked into the back where there was a small employee room and the device went crazy. 

“What’s going on?” Jamie covered his ears. 

Emily turned off the device. “I found something,” she mumbled and then smiled. 

Jamie didn’t quite understand Emily because she mumbled her response but he didn’t want to ask her what she said. He wondered around the place while Emily took notes of her findings. 

“The amount of transcendental energy… has to be 2nd dimensional.” This was something Winston was very livid about whenever they talked about Bastion (which they did often), saying that it was the most likely place to find the big Roboi. She knew every theory on the subject. 

Meanwhile, Jamie came across a glass case that was completely fogged up. When he opened it, there were Dairy Queen Dilly bars and ice cream sandwiches. 

“Hey, Emily!” Jamie called out. “Can I have a dilly bar?” 

Fortunately, Emily finished taking her notes. If she hadn’t she would have snapped at Jamie. “Dilly bar?” she asked as she came up behind Jamie. “I doubt they’ll be any good.” She picked one up and inspected the wrapper. 

“Pleeeease!” Jamie begged. 

Emily rolled her eyes with a smile. “Fine,” she said. She reached inside the strangely still working freezer and grabbed two dilly bars. One for Jamie and one for herself (she couldn't resist). 

Jamie cheered and they both left the Dairy Queen and made their way home. Emily advised Jamie to disconnect from Winston’s drone before he got caught. It was past his bedtime anyway. Then, Emily rode home in peace, re-reading her notes and analyzing the dimensional data.


	10. The Council of the Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

When Emily got back to the Watchpoint, Jamie was asleep so she had to eat both of the Dilly bars herself. Also, everybody was screaming at her for leaving. Apparently, Tracer had told everyone that she was carrying weapons despite never firing one in her life (she’d have to talk to her about that later). But everything calmed down when she told them of her findings.

“Trace dimensional residue‽ Transcendental energy‽” Winston scream asked, a scrask. “If your findings are accurate, that might be absolute proof of a second dimension!”

“And you know what that means,” Emily asked but not really asked Winston.

“Actually no, what does that mean?” Doomfist asked despite the question being directed at Winston. He was kind of like that.

“It means that there’s a possibility that Bastion survived!” Emily screamed with excitement.

“Audible gasp,” Genji audibly gasped. 

Tracer was shocked. Emily’s searches usually came up with absolutely nothing. She thought, I should probably apologize to her about memeing on her earlier uwu. She logged it away in her hamster ball of a mind before she got distracted by something else. 

“Wait, that means... that means that my family might still be alive!” Mercy suddenly yelled kind of. 

“Louder gasp,” Ana gasped louder, “We need to hold a council of the gods right now!”

As if by magic the scene suddenly changed into the Overwatch meeting room, with everybody in their respective seats. It looked like the Talon meeting room at Rialto but better and more colorful because Overwatch. Ana was at one head of the table and Doomfist at the other. All the factions of Overwatch (Anime Club, “Straight” Female Club, #thelovers, etc.) were all sitting next to each other.

“Winston, Emily, explain to everybody the possible ramifications of your discovery real quick,” Ana pointed at each of them when issuing this command. 

“Well,” Winston said, “it basically means that there's a whole other dimension extremely similar to ours right next to us on the astro-dimensional plain.”

Emily decided to dumb it down for him, “It’s like when you look in the mirror, you’re seeing the 2nd dimension… except it’s not like that at all even a little bit.”

“I see,” Doomfist said crossing his fingers, and yet again breaking his own hand (he was used to breaking it so often by that point so he just lived with a constantly broken hand, he didn’t even feel it anymore). Also, he didn’t really see he just wanted to contribute to the conversation. 

“Ok but back to the reason we need to hold a council of the gods,” Mercy interjected. “My family may still be alive and so might Bastion. If that’s true we’ll need to rescue him, he is still an active Overwatch member after all, but we’ll need to exercise extreme caution as well.” 

“True,” Ana said, “Firstly, we need to figure out if they’re even alive in the first place or if this 2nd dimension is even a real place. Winston, check Emily’s readings please and thank you,” because Ana was proper like that.

Emily gave Winston her notes and the Dimension-Finder-Inator™ by Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. Winston fiddled with the Inator for a while, and looked through Emily’s notes while everyone else at the table secretly got on their phones under the table so that Ana wouldn’t see them doing a disrespect (even though she too was secretly on her phone). 

“This is all very fascinating Emily,” Winston mused, “But I feel like I’ve seen these readings somewhere before… oh ya! I remember now! There was an amateur scientist working out of his garage that had similar readings to this. I was going through his notes when making the Black Hole Canon.”

Everybody's heads snapped to attention when Winston said the words “Black Hole Cannon.” They didn’t want him getting any ideas, they would never go through that garbage again; never again. In fact, he was banned from saying those words, so he would probably get grounded later.

“I wasn’t thinking about making another one! I was just making a statement,” Winston tried to cover himself (he was still getting grounded). “Anyway, if we’re going to get through to the 2nd dimension I’d say we start with this guy.”

“Alright, sounds good,” Doomfist said, “But everybody is tired tonight, so why don’t we go find him in the morning.”

“Great idea, Doomfist,” Ana gave Doomfist a little thumbs up and made the table pass him an expired Jimmy John’s coupon (they ran out of stickers) for his good idea. “We’ll continue this in the morning. Goodnight everyone,” she continued. And then the entire meeting room disappeared as if it never existed. 

Emily was a little miffed that the Overwatch team wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to rescue Bastion, but she realized she was tired too. The Dilly bar high had worn off by that point and she hadn’t gotten good sleep in days. So she just decided to call it a day and go to bed in an actual bed.

Tracer was about to talk to Emily about all the wrong she had done to her, but Emily fell right to sleep, so Tracer just tucked her in and saved it for the morning.


	11. The Bill Nye of This Generation

Unfortunately for Tracer, Emily left early in the morning (before Tracer was even close to waking up) with Winston on the Overwatch party ship to recruit the amatuer scientist. They were in for a pretty long flight, as the scientist they needed was all the way in Hollywood. 

But it wasn’t like the two didn’t have anything to talk about though. During her search for Bastion, Emily and Winston had become science buds, as she actually took interest into his weird physics experiments. They were playing Trivial Pursuit on the way there, getting all the science questions right while everything else befuddled them. 

They got there in the really early morning, like 4 or something (although at the Watchpoint it was like 10 in the morning or something because lol time zones). 

“This is the place,” Winston said looking at a mansion the size of Delaware.

“This doesn’t seem right… I thought you said he worked out of his garage?” Emily asked

“He does. Look,” Winston said pointing to an open garage that had all sorts of scientific equipment in it. Dimension readers, experimental portals, the works. They approached the garage, got stopped by security, but were let through because Overwatch was powerful XD.

In the garage they found Lúcio, the most famous of remix-remixers. Also the holder of the 2nd most romantic moment in human history, the concert where he proposed to his Twitch streamer/cop/bee furry girlfriend Hana (Codename D.Va). He was just standing there in a lab coat, looking at scientific notes that even Winston found to be convoluted and weird at first glance.

“Woah there you two, don’t be laying your hands on any of my equipment!” Lúcio said not even looking up from his notes. He saw them without looking. 

“Hey, um, I’m Thiccston29 from the physics subreddit. I sent you an email about coming here,” Winston said in awe that the person he had contacted was actually Lúcio, the pioneer of the base-bass drop raise technique in techno music.

“Oh ya! I remember reading that you two were interested in some dimensional noise!” Lúcio said, looking away from his notes now. 

“Yes, we are in fact interested in some dimensional noise,” Emily said, “But we have something you might want to look at first.” She handed him her notes. 

Lúcio flipped through the notes and said, “Damn girl! You see what we have here is some crazy dimensional residue… where did you find it?”

“An abandoned Dairy Queen outside Gibraltar,” she said. 

“Dang, there’s one place I never looked,” he said with a chuckle, “But anyway, this may just be a revolutionary discovery!”

“We know,” Winston said, “It might be significant evidence of a second dimension.”

Lúcio pointed to him and said, “My man! See I’ve been tracking real subtle blips in the dimensional plane for a long time now, but I’ve never seen stuff this wack before. If you were to publish this, the entire scientific community would go absolutely insane!”

“Wait, hold the phone,” Emily said, “I thought you were Lúcio, you know, famous techno music icon? And you’ve also been tracking dimensional energy for years‽”

“Oh ya. I’ve been doing science since before my music career even began, man! I got my PHD in physics at the University of Berkeley!” Lúcio said. 

“Ok, then why do you do music?” Winston asked.

“‘Cuz I didn’t have any money out of college, so I went into music as a cover to get money for my research. I was so poor at one point that I stole some scientific instruments out of the back of my Uber driver's car just to create my first turntable!” Lúcio explained. “And besides, now that I’m famous, one day I can just up and publish a bunch of my findings and make science cool again. I’m basically the Bill Nye of this generation.”

“Neat,” Winston said.

“Back on topic,” Emily said, refocusing the conversation, “We came here to see if you could use my findings and your technology to make a portal to the 2nd dimension.”

“Easy, so long as I get a cut of that sweet, sweet publication credit,” Lúcio said.

Winston was hesitant. Credit in science was difficult to give, because it basically meant that you needed help with something, and that wasn’t Winston’s style. But Emily just said “Sure,” and Lúcio got on his merry way.

He worked on and off for a few hours on a couple of his weird portals whilst holding Emily’s notes. He still didn’t let Winston and Emily touch any of his equipment so they were just sitting on the garage step watching him work. Hana actually came in to give Lúcio a breakfast and offered some to them as well. She also questioned Winston about a thievery two years ago at Oasis that had taken place by someone of his description. He said he had nothing to do with it and even if he did that it was internationally sanctioned by the Overwatch Federation (an agency he made up right then and there) and that she would need to contact his lawyer. She asked no further questions and actually bought his story somehow. 

Somewhere around 8 in the morning (Around 2 pm Gibraltar time I think), he was done with his portal. He smiled his trademark happy frog smile and said “Tada!” The portal was inconspicuous, simply a blue/purplish oval that made pleasant sounds. But it was the transportation method between dimensions, and that was all Emily needed.

“You mind if we send a probe in there?” she asked.

Lucio obliged by throwing a pen on a string through the portal. After about 10 seconds he pulled it back out; it looked fine. Afterwards he scanned the pen, but everything was the same as when it went through, despite some dimensional residue. 

“Effect on non-biological material: Non-existant.” Winston said. 

“What about biological material?” Emily asked.

Lúcio responded by tossing a piece of pepper he had left over from his breakfast burrito attached to a string into the portal. Took it out, ran the tests; nothing.

“Looks good to me, the only thing left to do is check if there is oxygen,” Lúcio said.

”I got this,” Emily said as she poked her head through the portal. 

In retrospect she would find what she did entirely foolish, there could have been no oxygen at all. But, fortunately for her, there was oxygen. After she found out there was oxygen she went all the way through the portal. She used her see holes then to observe and document her surroundings. 

What she saw was conflicting at best. Everything looked discolored, not deprived of color like a black and white TV, but not completely normal either. Even her own body was not spared from the discoloration. She was in a street in an unnamed city, but the houses were Victorian looking, definitely not like she was used to despite having lived in London for a while. 

But when she looked up, her mouth hung open in surprise. In the sky was tons and tons of futuristic machines, firing upon the city. The drone like machines were not of the same time period as the architecture of the city. Now that she noticed that, she also noticed that cannons were right beside her, not firing; but she did hear cannon fire in the distance, followed by one of the drones crashing down. Not that that helped at all; as soon as that drone was knocked down, 5 more took its place. 

Emily was so surprised that she actually stumbled back into the portal. She tripped on the metal portion and fell back into the garage. Lúcio and Winston were standing over her, looking surprised but relieved. 

“Where have you been‽” Winston aksed.

“What are you talking about, I was only in there for a couple of seconds?” Emily asked, slightly shell shocked.

“No girl... you’ve been gone for minutes,” Lúcio said like that was a large amount of time.


	12. Weeb Off

While all that was going on, a much more important event was taking place at Watchpoint Gibraltar, deep in the basement. It was an event of life and death, one of honor and grace, one that would decide the fate of 5 peoples afternoons for foreseeable future. The weeb off had begun. 

Reaper was standing in a dark room near the bottom of the basement, but not at the complete bottom; at the complete bottom room, they kept Balazaric the Untamed, Destroyer of Worlds. The dark room he was in was just above that one. 

He had been asked to moderate the Weeb Off by both parties, as he loved them both equally. He stayed up all night, researching weeb stuff, to try and make it as close of a fight as possible. He didn’t fully know who he wanted to win, and that made him the perfect moderator. The questions he asked were fair and balanced, equally attuned to each party, with one killer question at the end which he was certain neither of them knew the answer to. Still, he feared for the loser, (if there was one. His plan made it severely unlikely that either would lose, and that it was more likely to end in a tie), so he sulked in the dark room that would be one of the contestant's doom. 

Eventually, someone turned the lights on and Reaper’s eyes burned. When he was able to see, some 15 years later it felt to him, he saw 3 of the 4 other Anime Club members there. McCree was nowhere to be found. Moira and Genji both had somber faces, and Hanzo looked like they would rather be downstairs a level than here. McCree wasn’t there because he was still sleeping off his high school reunion that happened the other day after the meeting. 

“It is time, High Noon™ has arrived,” Genji said. 

“What‽” Reaper scrasked, “It can’t be! I’ve only been down here-”

“All night,” Genji said matter of factly, “And all of this morning too.”

“But-” Reaper tried to say but Moira cut him off. 

“No more games, my child,” she said, “We both know full well that you’ve been done with your research for hours.”

“How?” Reaper asked, genuinely curious even in this stressful situation. 

“Magic,” Genji and Moira said at the same time.

“Security cameras,” Hanzo contradicted. 

“Ah,” Reaper said.

“So are we going to get this started or not?” Genji asked.

“Yes...” Reaper said, “Alright you two, get up on your podiums,” 

Behind him was the set of Jeopardy! fully recreated. But the stage was slightly different than the normal Jeopardy! set. There were two podiums instead of three, and instead of a bunch of blue squares, there were a bunch of anime faces. The two contestants went up to the podiums, wrote their names quickly in Japanese (Moira wrote like an angel, Genji just put a few squiggles that couldn’t even be considered a language). The entire Weeb Off was to be in Japanese, for only the most powerful weeb could prevail. All the questions on the Jeopardy! squares were in Japanese and so was any other symbol that would usually be in English. Hanzo sat in the audience seats and hoped that Reaper would translate the questions into English because he didn’t speak Japanese (have you ever heard Hanzo speak Japanese outside his ult line, I thought not). 

Reaper did not. He spoke in his most correct Japanese. Genji and Moira understood him perfectly.

“It begins friends,” Reaper spoke in Japanese, “The first question is in the Fanfiction category.”

“For 100 points, in what fanfiction does Amamiya Ren and Alphonse Elric banish Dormammu,” Reaper said.

Genji pushed his button with ninja speed. This was not only because he was a ninja, but also because he was very confident with his answer. He read fanfictions. A lot of fanfictions. 

“What is The Outcasts by SirShipington9000,” he said the title in Japanese as well. 

“Correct. Next question,” Reaper continued, “What was the MacGuffin in The Sword and the Bow by GirlGaymer?”

Again, Genji pressed the button almost immediately. “What is Benedict Cumberbatch’s cracked skull,” 

“Correct,” Reaper said again. 

It continued like this until they got to the 1000 question of the fanfiction section, where Reaper said, “In what fanfiction does the hero sacrifice himself to a black hole to save the girl?” 

“What is Interstellar,” Genji said. 

“Correct,” Reaper said. In this universe, Interstellar was a science fiction Anime fanfiction of Persona 3, and not as it is in this universe, a movie about the bass boosted sound effect. 

Moira watched, arms crossed, with a look of complacency on her face. She didn’t even move to punch the button, not that she couldn’t have, she simply refused to. Her time was coming. 

Reaper moved onto the next category, Waifus. Genji was more confident than ever, he was pretty sure he knew what Reaper would pick for this category. Also, Moira hadn’t even come close to hitting her button and he felt good about that. 

Reaper began, “For 100, who is the undisputed best waifu in Kawaii Death Desu?”

Genji was just about to bring his fingers down on his buzzer before he realized that Moira had already pressed her’s and answered before he even had a chance to think. 

“Haihiru,” she said, “Best friend of Kutsushita.”

“Correct,” Reaper said, “Next question.” Reaper was surprised by the sheer speed at which Moira pressed the button, but he didn’t let it show. Genji was still in the lead, and if all went as planned it would all end in a tie and nothing would have to happen. 

But it did not. Every time Reaper finished speaking Moira hit her button milliseconds later. Even by ninja standards that was fast. Genji wasn’t even able to keep up. Moira answered question after question not even giving Genji a chance to process the first syllable of whatever Reaper said. Moira was quickly catching up to Genji and a single drop of sweat rolled down his metal mask (not even science can explain that one). 

Finally, When the scores were tied, Reaper conveniently ran out of cards. “Looks like it’s a tie.” He shrugged. 

“All or nothing!!” Both Moira and Genji shouted. They looked daggers at each other and awaited Reaper’s final question that would settle the tie once and for all. 

Reaper legit didn’t have another question prepared, and didn’t want to continue on. But if he didn’t, their feud might never end. Besides, this one could probably tie them up anyways. “Okay, this one's about my own work with my OCs,” he said. 

Genji smiled under his mask. Reaper would send Genji parts of his Wattpad original story on Discord while he was away. He knew everything about Reaper’s characters and it was a guaranteed win. 

“For the win, who is the smug pro-” Reaper began but was cut off by Genji slapping the buzzer. 

“Who is Firesparkle Bighearti‽” Genji huffed. 

After a short pause (in which he cursed Genji’s overeagerness to be the big boy), Reaper spoke, “Incorrect.” 

“WHAT‽ But smug protagonist!” Genji verbed. 

“You didn’t let me finish,” Reaper grumbled with a bit of sadness in his voice, “I was going to say smug pro gamer antagonist…” 

Just as Reaper finished speaking Moira pressed her buzzer. “Kleenex-sama.” 

“Correct,” Reaper pressed a button that played an applause track while Moira chuckled. 

Genji slumped to his knees dramatically. “How could this be?” 

“Tough luck Genji,” Moira didn’t even look at the cyborg ninja man boy. “Looks like I’ll continue being the leader and you’ll be hereby banished from the club.” 

“It is not fair! You probably worked with him on his story!” Genji did a backflip to stand up off the ground. It was true. Moira was the editor. 

“Oh come on, half the fanfiction that he asked about were what you wrote under different names,” Moira rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious because you don’t even know the difference between your and you’re.” 

“Your wrong, you fool!” Genji dashed out of the room in tears that also somehow appeared outside his metal mask.

\---------

Back at his room, Hanzo saw that McCree was still asleep. He was tired after the weeb off and wanted to sleep. He wished McCree could have came with him, but he just looked so tired. 

Actually, now that Hanzo looked at his husband (cigar and whisky hose in his mouth as always), he actually saw something scary. A touch of sadness.


	13. Stylish Landing

Lúcio had signed on completely. He was willing to move all the way to Gibraltar to finish this project. Actually, in the couple of hours he had known of Emily’s discoveries, he had become obsessed with all aspects of the 2nd dimension. He had had Emily repeat her accounts of the place several times, and wrote down the same thing every time. He had all the things he needed packed in 30 minutes; this included his wife, and his wife’s stuff because she was going too. 

As they were flying, Lúcio kept looking over everything. He asked questions a lot too, but not only about the project, but about Winston and Emily as well. He was genuinely curious about them, especially about Emily, who seemed as passionate about this discovery as he was. He found out that it was because her friend was possibly trapped there in the mirror world they found, although how her friend got there he could never figure out (the words “Black Hole” and “Cannon” were sent through a profanity filter). 

Eventually, they arrived at Gibraltar, They got back to Gibraltar at about 4 o'clock, even though it was like 2 there when they were first seeing Lúcio. Apparently, Lúcio’s speed boost worked on rockets too. They arrived in a fashionable style; they crash landed into the side of the mountain, but that was normal. They all walked through the flames epicly without burning. What absolute legends. They all had sunglasses on. 

Ana was there to witness this cool display. She was leaning against the door that led to the mountain side of Gibraltar. 

“Wow,” she said dryly as they approached. 

“Thanks,” Winston said, cooly pushing up his sunglasses. 

“So… uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, why did you do that?” she asked.

“Because we’ve finally found a way into the 2nd dimension!” Emily screamed not cooly at all, in fact very excitedly. Her sunglasses were gone.

“Are you sure everything you’re working towards isn’t going up in flames?” Ana asked as she pointed towards the crash.

“Um,” they said as they all looked behind themselves. 

“OH FUCK,” Winston said and rocket jumped over to a fire extinguisher, Emily following close behind. It was all alright though. A little fire never burnt anything, and Winston got there before a big fire burnt everything. Ana and the newcomers stayed behind.

Lúcio was the first to speak. He turned towards Ana, held out his hand and said, “Hey girl, my names Lúcio. I’m the scientist you wanted to find.”

Ana shook his hand. “I know who you are,” she said with a smile, “Many people here at the Watchpoint are a fan of your music.” She didn’t tell him about how several in Talon absolutely despised his music but she didn’t really need to either. 

“My name is Ana, and I’m in charge here,” she continued. 

Lúcio nodded, but at this point, Hana had actually began to speak, so he couldn’t continue. 

“Wait… you’re the Ana!” she asked all excitedly. 

“The one and only,” Ana said with pride, happy to be recognized for one of her many accomplishments. 

“Wow… I’d never think I would meet the 2036 Heroes of the Storm World Champion!” Hana said. 

“Ye,” Ana said slightly downcast. Her Heroes of the Storm days were over. 

By then Winston and Emily had returned, panting, with soot all over their faces. They were carrying a bunch of papers, laptops and books that somehow didn’t burn in the explosion. They set it all down and sat down themselves, tired. 

“Huf *wheeze* huf, I really should, guh, get more exercise,” Winston guhed. 

Emily, the star of her High School track team, had already recovered from the jaunt. “So have you called a council?” she asked Ana. 

Ana nodded, “Did it as soon as you crashed into the mountain.”

“Good,” Lúcio said, “We have plenty to talk about.”


	14. Regarding the 2nd Dimension

The Overwatch meeting room was packed. Ana and the party above had yet to arrive, but everyone else had. They were all sitting in their little groups, except for the Anime Club, which had an empty seat. As Genji was banished from the Anime club, he could not sit with them. He actually sat in the corner, which looked much too dark for the bright Overwatch meeting room.

Mercy was anxious for the meeting to begin. She was afraid that her family was still alive, and that if they were, that they would come to get her. It was, at least partially, her fault that their lives sucked. And why couldn’t they come get her? If Emily and Winston could break through dimensions so could the bad guys. Pharah was sitting next to her, watching the anxiousness Mercy reserved only for her family creep across her face. Pharah tried to think of some way to comfort her, but could think of nothing to say. It was kind of in her nature to not say stuff, but she wanted to say something, darnit. 

Just then Ana and the others appeared in the room. They entered the room through no doors, as the Overwatch meeting room had none, they simply faded into existence. Ana had her good eye up to the whites and was growling lowly with her mouth closed. When they fully appeared she stopped. With her was Winston, Emily, and two others most of them had only seen on the holovids. Lúcio and D.va sure did draw a lot of attention, and most of them questioned why they were there. Mei was just about to explode, she loved Lúcio’s music, and Junkrat was sweating, because it was possible that D.va would recognize them from the bank heist a few years years ago. But they were wearing tuxedos then so he hoped that she wouldn’t notice.

And in fact, she didn’t. The men who had taken the money looked at least presentable, and the men of Overwatch looked like trash no homo. And by then she had actively erased that experience from her mind. It was the worst day of her career when she inadvertently let those robbers escape.

But that didn’t matter now. Ana sat down at her usual spot at the head of the table. Winston sat to her right, as her chief science boy. Emily took her customary place next to Tracer. Lúcio and D.Va were still standing to the direct left and right of Ana. The didn’t ask for seats and didn’t need them. 

Somehow a gavel sound came out of the wood near Ana, despite the fact that there was no hammer even near the table. The closest thing was Torb’s forge hammer and he left that in the kitchen when he transported to the meeting area. Quiet was settled upon the meeting place like a blanket.

“We have information now,” Ana said, “That may just help us understand our new situation, rescue Bastion, and deal with the enemies that may still live.”

Mercy shifted in her seat and clung to her wife’s hand tightly in her anxiousness. Emily leaned forward in her eagerness, and unlike Mercy did not seek the hand of her love. She didn’t find it necessary; she was closer than ever to her goal and comfort wasn’t required. She waited for the insight Lúcio had thus far kept silent about regarding the 2nd Dimension. 

“Lúcio, the floor is yours,” Ana said. 

Lúcio nodded. “Thanks, Ana,” he said as he moved forward.

“Now, you all might know me for my music career. Don’t let that fool you. I’ve been tracking this dimensional noise for at least a decade,” he said, addressing the entire room in a cultured enough tone that truly revealed the vast extent of education. All eyes were on him, but he was used to that. Despite his diminutive size, he tended to demand attention wherever he went.

“I’ve come here to talk to all of you about the discoveries our friend Emily found at that one Dairy Queen,” he continued. “We know a great deal actually, based on the tests and observations we experienced before we got here.”

Lúcio had gotten into a bad habit of pacing (although he was wearing skates, it was more just skating back and forth than it was pacing) when he got to talking about science. Hana had seen it before and was seeing it now. She didn’t like it, she felt it gave him an air of inattentiveness, of distance, despite the passion of which she knew Lúcio was capable of for his work (and everything he did in general). But she never said anything about it, it wasn’t really necessary to. If that was the only flaw she could spot, that was fine with her. 

As she thought this, Lúcio continued speaking. “The 2nd dimension is much like our own, mostly in the fact that all the physics are the same and the planet we found on the other side seems to have a lot of the same stuff.”

Then Lúcio stopped pacing and said, “But don’t mistake it for a mirror of our world! Don’t count on it! That place over there,” he pointed behind him despite the fact that the 2nd dimension was not behind him, “Has enough problems to keep y’all busy for weeks!”

Under her breath Ana said, “5 days, tops.” Lúcio didn’t hear her, and continued on with the problems while beginning to pace again.

“The first thing our girl Emily noticed were the buildings. They were all Victorian-like, and there were cannons in the street she teleported into,” he paused to turn on his skates then continued, “This suggested to me at first that the 2nd dimension might have been slightly behind the times. It turns out that’s not so.”

He stopped pacing for dramatic effect and said, “When Emily looked up she saw a legion of futuristic drone things that were all lasery!” Lúcio waited for someone to audibly gasp. Someone (Reinhardt) obliged and he moved on.

“This probably means that someone, presumably the same person who left dimensional residue in that Dairy Queen, is waging a war with state of the art technology,” Lúcio emphasized the word war, as he thought it would probably stick in all of their minds. It did. None of them had been in a good war for a while, and were hoping for one to come around. Winston was even thinking of starting one himself if he got bored enough (he knew he could).

“And that’s not all… as far as we’re able to tell, time in the 2nd dimension is wacked to hell and back,” Lúcio continued. This was one of the parts Emily had experienced for herself. She could have swore that she was only in the 2nd Dimension (2D for short) l for maybe 20 seconds. But after she came through the portal again, it turned out she had really been in there for just around 4 minutes. She had already theorized that the 2nd dimension had a differential in time to the 1st dimension, specifically that the 2nd dimension was a whole heck of a lot slower than the 1st. 

But she also felt that Lúcio knew a little more than she did on that front. He had continued asking her specifically how long she had been there. After a while he went silent, asked Winston if there was a secret area that he could do some science in, and Winston said the bathroom. Lúcio gladly took the bathroom and came out some 15 minutes later. He didn’t let anyone into the bathroom from then on out. Not even Lúcio went back inside, until their final descent. Luckily none of them had to use it (that’s a lie they all did, but they held it like legends).

He went back in only once, near the end of their journey. She assumed he got his science thing before Winston drove Overwatch Party Ship #57 into the side of a cliff (he doesn’t know how to park those ships). 

She was indeed correct that Lúcio knew a little bit more than her. He pulled out a stopwatch that looked battered and ashen. It looked like it could have had a gold color once, but was now a dull silver as if all the varnish was blasted off. Despite the damage to the watch, the clock part was still running.

“You see this?” Lúcio asked. Everyone there nodded. He continued, “I placed it into the 2nd dimension through the portal I created at my place….” He stopped talking again because he was super melodramatic. 

“This clock is running 4 days ahead of when I put it in, just about 3 hours ago!” Lúcio said with enthusiasm.

It was then Winston interrupted him. “So what you’re saying is, time is fluctuating there? Sometimes it’s faster sometimes it’s slower?”

“Right,” Lúcio said, “You could be in there for what feels like 5 minutes, but over on this side it could be anything from 3 seconds to 3 years!”

“Darn,” Winston said dramatically, lightly placing his fist on the table.


	15. Squeakquel to Chapter 14

“Hmm. This changes things,” Ana thought out loud, “Anyone who goes in might lose out on years over here. And if there is actually our level of technology, then we’ll need a recon team to figure out as much as possible...“

“I’ll go,” Sombra said. She was laying her head against the table, bored out of her mind. She really didn’t have anything to do these days, as she deleted all hate mail about a year ago and Emily kept hogging the computer. Besides, she had no reason not to go. She could totally lose a bunch of time on this side; she had nobody waiting for her here. 

“Alright,” Ana said immediately, “Anyone else want to volunteer?”

“I need to go,” Winston said, “This is the find of the century!“ And also, although he didn’t say it, he was also bored out of his mind. He had little to nothing to do these days, and a little war would be good for him. “I’ll document what I can,” he continued. 

Lúcio rubbed the back of his head and said, “I’d like to go too. Buuuut, I think I’d need to be on this side to monitor the portals. I might come on a later mission, but as for recon, I’ll be on the support.” He was jittering a bit, another habit that he had when he got scientific. But he was also jittering because this was the biggest find of his life, and Winston was about to document as much as possible.

“I will go,” Genji said from the corner. He didn’t even want to be in this dimension anymore. Even the comfort of his BF (best friend), couldn’t help. He just wanted to brood. 

“Anyone else?” Ana looked around the room. She was hoping a support would go along so that she wouldn’t have to go herself.

Mercy looked like she was about to stand, but then thought better of it. If she went along, there were a plethora of things that could go wrong; anything from meeting her family to dying while she was rezzing, which would have been annoying. She was also discouraged because of the person holding her hand. She couldn’t leave Pharah, and she also couldn’t force her to come with her into dangerous territory.

The only other support in the room, Moira, didn’t really feel like going either. She had a club to run. 

“Nobody?” Ana asked. “Audible sigh, I guess I’ll-”

She was interrupted by Emily standing straight (get it because she’s not) out of her chair. 

“I’LL GO,” she said very loudly.

“Bu-” Tracer was about to speak but Emily interrupted her too (rude).

“I can retech someone else’s healing kit before we go. You don’t have to worry about it!” Emily said excitedly.

“Honey I-” Tracer tried again but was interrupted this time by Ana.

“Great!” Ana said. She reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealy didn’t want to go if she didn’t have to. She had too many other things on her plate. Keeping Balazaric in the basement being only one. 

“You can take some of my tech if you want,” she continued. 

“That would be great!” Emily said.

“I’m-” Tracer tried again, but failed miserably. 

“Glad to have you along!” Winston said with enthusiasm. 

By then Tracer just shut up. She guessed that she would be interrupted at every turn. Besides, she felt this was a conversation for later anyway. All she did was look sidelong at Emily with sad and hurt eyes. 

“Alright,” Ana continued after a generous silence and after Emily sat back down. “I’m glad we have a few beings going along. Now, Lúcio… how long will it take to make a reliable portal?”

“Probably like a few days,” Lúcio said, “Maybe less. Can’t be sure. If I end up doing what I want to do it will probably be 3 days at least.”

“That’s fine,” Ana said, “We’ll supply you with anything you need.” 

“Also,” Ana stood at this point, “Because you’re doing so much for us I’d like to formally induct you into Overwatch, the both of you. You don’t have to go on any missions if you don’t feel like it, but you’ll have all the amenities our organization provides. We’ll also give you both your own room if that’s necessary.”

“Naw,” D.va said, “We usually sleep in the same room anyways lol.”

“Lol,” Ana said, “And with that, I conclude this meeting of the gods. Those of you who have agreed to go, I’d suggest you get your stuff together and get some rest. Be ready in about 3 days.”

The imaginary gavel sounded and the meeting room disappeared. All the Overwatch members teleported back to the areas they were before they teleported to the meeting room. Most were in bed when the meeting began and they got to sleep in for a while. The 5 that crashed into the side of the mountain all had work to get done and didn’t get to sleep in.

The quest for the 2nd dimension... had begun.


	16. McCree Has a Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back, gamers :)

Hanzo actually teleported back on to the top of the cliff. He was sitting cross legged on a pillow and watching the sun rise into the sky when he was teleported against his will to the Overwatch meeting room. Usually he would be sleeping in with McCree at that point in the morning, but he actually had a lot on his mind as of late. 

Hanzo sighed, picked up the pillow and climbed down the cliff, not really knowing what else to do. By that point the sun had gotten quite hot in the afternoon shine and Hanzo hadn’t eaten anything since the 3 lima beans he had for breakfast (dude wtf). 

He was going to see what Torb had out for the buffet when he saw the beings of The Straight Female Club™® (excluding Ana), were sitting at the dining room table and talking. Usually they had their meetings in a super secret area (Sombra’s walk in closet). It was one of the most secretive clubs around, although not on purpose; just, nobody asked about it. Hanzo went to go get his lunch, which would consist of 8 lima beans (Hanzo please), and then he would sit at the far end of the table and continue to think about his problem.

While he was eating his 3rd lima bean out of 9 (he decided to spoil himself with 1 extra), the SFC®©™ was having a fun time wishing Sombra a fond farewell with cheesecake and wine grape juice. 

By the time Hanzo was on his 5th lima bean they all noticed him and he noticed that they noticed him. They all sensed his pain, his inner struggle with some unknown problem. He sensed their need to give him some cheesecake and talk about his feelings, but resisted it.

Only 1 lima bean later they were around him, painting his nails all pink and glittery. He didn’t know how they got there, it kind of felt like time skipped, but then he remembered that he had actually broke down crying and then had promptly destroyed his own memories of them coming over to console him. He was alright with what was happening. The girls were alright with it too, even Sombra, the apparent reason for this get together, was contentedly painting Hanzo’s right hand.

While Hanzo was still crying, nobody bothered asking him any questions, but now that he was calmer, they felt better about asking him what was wrong. 

Mercy began, “Hanzo, what seems to be the problem?”

Hanzo sat in his dining room seat stifling tears, “I have lost my home, and my brother!”

“I am over here,” Genji said quietly in the oddly dark corner. Wherever he went there was a big shadow. Emo magic. 

He was ignored. “But that is not why I am saddened,” Hanzo said.

“McCree? I’m right aren’t I,” Mercy said. Whenever Hanzo was having trouble it was always linked at least somehow to McCree.

“Yes,” Hanzo said, “Of course it is McCree.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Mei asked. She was painting Hanzo’s toes (he had them propped up). 

“I do not know,” Hanzo said, “But I worry he has reverted back to his depressed state. He’s constantly sleeping, smoking and drinking.”

Mercy sighed, “The drinking and smoking seem to be normal. The sleeping worries me; it’s a sign of depression.”

“No,” Hanzo said, “You do not seem to understand. He is constantly sleeping, smoking ,and drinking.”

Sombra was rebuffed, “Wait that doesn’t mean-.”

“Always,” Hanzo said solemnly, “Every moment of every day for the past 2 days. In, his, sleep.”

“Why‽” Mei said.

“I am unsure,” Hanzo said, laying his head back behind his chair, “I believe it has something to do with an event that happened a few days ago, after the meeting at the Anime Club...” 

“First of all, that’s not how you use ellipses,” Mercy said, then continued, “Second, what happened two days ago?” 

“Well,” Hanzo said, “After the meeting, he said he had to go meet up with some old friends. He said he would be back for the party, but that he would be gone for a couple hours. When he came back… it began.”

“Hell,” Sombra said, “What do you think these ‘old friends’ did to him?”

“I am uncertain. I can’t even wake him up for long enough to ask him who they are. I am still trying to figure out what is wrong,” Hanzo said.

“This is troubling,” Mercy said as she transferred from Hanzo’s left hand to his left foot. “We’ll have to help you figure this out, as quickly as possible.”

“That is not necessary, I am quite capable of doing this on my own-” Hanzo said before being interrupted by Mercy.

“Nonsense!” she said, “You obviously need help with this kind of thing. You’re definitely not a psychologist, and as soon as we looked at you for longer than 4 seconds you broke down crying!”

“A-alright,” Hanzo said, “I will admit that much. But I should be able to get through to him on my own. He is my husband after all-”

“Shh,” Sombra said, putting her finger on Hanzo’s lips, interrupting him again, “Just because he’s your husband doesn’t mean that you can get through to him. It took one heck of a slapp™ to get him out of his first depression.” 

Hanzo thought for a minute, then sighed, “I suppose you are correct. But what can the four of us possibly do?”

They sat in silence for a while before Mei spoke up from below, “Well… there’s something we’ve been working on for a while that just might help.”


	17. Top 10 Easy Ways to Read His MIND!

The members of the SFC went to go get what they were planning to use, and Hanzo was left to finish his lima beans. He did just that, savoring every bean, knowing that it would be another decade until he was allowed to feast again. Despite the pleasure the beans brought, Hanzo was worried, seeing as he wasn’t fully sure what the SFC was planning to do to McCree to make him talk. Torture? He thought not. The closest thing those girls had to torture was their dreadful obsession with Orange is the New Black (a show Hanzo had never watched and never planned to).

They planned to meet up in the room Hanzo and McCree shared. It was where McCree was spending most of his time now, constantly drinking, smoking, and sleeping at the same time. Hanzo went there at once, hoping that McCree would be awake when he got there. Alas, McCree still had a problem. 

Hanzo took at seat in the corner and silently screamed. He did this until his door was unceremoniously knocked down.

“It’s time, my dude,” Sombra said whilst standing over yet another door-corpse.

“Agreed,” Mercy said, coming in behind her, and holding a brown burlap sack. 

“uwu,” Mei said because she felt like she had to contribute something to this conversation. 

“I have been waiting patiently,” Hanzo said, standing up. “As you can see his condition is less than desirable.”

“You’re telling me!” Mercy exclaimed. As a doctor she was appalled by the living fire hazard in Hanzo’s bed. McCree had on one of those preppy booze hats that let you string booze from your head straight into your mouth. He also had one of those chainsmokers implements that allowed him to smoke three cigarettes at once. And of course he was in a vegetative state. Even if Mercy felt like bringing the machinery down from the med bay to scan him (and trust me she didn’t), she would find only small amounts of brain activity. But he wasn’t dead, his steady breathing showed that. 

“Are you sure he’s just depressed?” Sombra asked. “He wasn’t even close to this when I super slapped him.”

Hanzo nodded and said, “I’m sure. He wakes up sometimes. Only briefly. And during those times he simply cries.”

“How does he get new booze? Or cigarettes for that matter?” Mei asked.

Hanzo spread his hands like Spongebob explaining imagination. Everyone there interpreted this gesture as “Magic,” and were quite correct in that assumption. 

“Makes sense. He is a god after all,” Sombra said as she silently dabbed. 

Mercy noticed Sombra’s dab and dabbed in turn. She looked over McCree, seeing to it that he was ready for the operation they were about to perform. She nodded satisfied.

She turned to her compatriots and said, “I think we’ll be able to do this. His state is such that I doubt we’ll encounter any opposition. But we’ll need to take the normal precautions anyways.”

Hanzo raised his hand, “May I ask what you plan to do to my husband?”

“Glad you asked,” Mercy said, and reached into the burlap sack. What she pulled out looked like a pasta strainer with plastic forks and copper wiring sticking out of it, and a helmet strap at the bottom. Connected to that were 3 identical spaghetti de-hydrofyers and a small T.V. remote. Mei took the T.V. remote immediately. 

“And what exactly are those?” Hanzo asked.

“They’re simple really,” Mercy said, “Using the vast resources of the SFC, and also using the intelligence of at least 2 people with doctorates and a techie, we’ve created a way to read people’s minds!”

“We got the idea off BuzzFeed,” Mei said, “They had a list called Top 10 Easy Ways to Read His MIND and we just kind of went from there.”

“Alrighty then,” Hanzo said, putting on his helmet, “Have you done this before.”

“Yes,” Sombra said whilst putting on her helmet as well, “On a mission we had to figure out this one dudes favorite food and this seemed like the easiest way.”

“And actually your husband is going to much easier to read than Steve Buscemi,” Mercy said, also putting on her helmet, “Seeing as he’s almost literally in a coma, we shouldn’t have to worry too much. But we should still be cautious.”

“Why?” Hanzo asked.

“The mind is a dangerous place,” Mercy said, “What we’re going to enter is what I like to call ‘Memory Lane.’ We’ll enter into a place that will look like a giant library with books and doors. All the books have memories, but the doors hold huge memories, the kind of thing you’d never forget. We’ll be looking for one of those doors.” 

“The Library is shaped like a giant sphere with several balconies,” Mei continued explaining, “Each level is a certain time period. We’ll mostly be going through the recent stuff so you won’t have to go far.”

Sombra took up the explanation, “But there's a problem. ‘Memory Lane’ has a special guardian, called the ‘Mind’s Eye’ that’s usually used to look over certain memories. Let me tell you, this thing is HUGE, and is floating right in the middle of the many balconies.”

“Good thing is,” Mei added now pressing a few buttons on the T.V. remote, “Because McCree is asleep so deeply, the ‘Mind’s Eye’ will probably be closed. That’s one of the issues out of the way.”

Hanzo raised his eyebrow, “One of?”

Mercy nodded, “There are three things that we should fear when in ‘Memory Lane’. There’s the Mind’s Eye, of course, which can kick us out or worse if it spots us. There’s the Id, the psychological manifestation of base instinct and desire, which is capable of ripping us to shreds if it finds us. And then there’s the Ego. That one is really scary...”

“What is the Ego?” Hanzo asked, wondering why mind reading had to be so messy. 

“The Ego according to Freud’s model is the intermediate between base desires and logical, moral behavior,” Mei picked up, “It acts based on reality. It is the manifestation of all of McCree’s rational thought. It acts as an the avatar in McCree’s memories. If he walked to the store, you’ll see his Ego walk to the store. But the Ego doesn’t look human… it’s the eyes.”

“What-?” Hanzo asked. 

“It’ll look like McCree, but the eyes… they’re gone,” Mercy said dramatically, “Only glowing light shows out.”

“It’s terrifying. And it gets even worse; where the Id is physically strong, the Ego is mentally strong. If it spots you and believes you’re a threat, it’ll drive you insane!” Mei added. 

“Why does this all have to be so complicated!” Hanzo whined. 

“The mind is a powerful place,” Sombra said, “Who knows what we’d find if we could go into the parts of the mind that aren’t just memories!”

Mercy nodded, “Indeed. Now, one final thing. The Mind’s Eye floats in the Library, as we’ve already discussed. But Id and Ego reside in the memories themselves, Ego acting as McCree’s mirror of past events, and the Id acting as a stalking thing. It is not bound to the location the Ego is bound to, and can roam a memory as it pleases. If we run into the Id, the best thing to do is to fight or confuse it. But if we see the Ego, the best thing to do is to have Mei pull us out.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Mei said still fiddling with the remote.

“Wait why am I not on the tech side of things,” Sombra asked. 

“Because you can actually fight, duh,” Mei said. 

“Understandable,” Sombra said.

Hanzo let loose an exasperated sigh, “So we have to sneak past the Mind’s Eye, find the correct door, and try not to die to Id or Ego. Do I have it all correct?”

“Indeed,” Mercy said.

“I am ready,” Hanzo sighed again. 

“Better be,” Mei said, “I started 3 minutes ago.”

“Wha-” But Hanzo wasn’t in his room anymore. He was standing on a balcony. If he were to look over it, he would find many miles of other scaffolds, with the abyss of childhood at the bottom. He would also see a giant, floating eyeball in between these balconies, but thankfully it was closed. 

They had left his room, and had entered the Library.


	18. Silence in the Library

Hanzo turned around and saw Sombra and Mercy brushing themselves off. The Library was full of dust for some reason, and it was kind of disgusting. Hanzo was about to open his mouth and complain about it, but Mercy put her finger on Hanzo’s lip. She pointed to the giant, floating closed eye behind him and over the balcony railing. Hanzo nodded, understanding. The Eye didn’t have ears but it would still hear them if they spoke. There would need to be silence in the Library. 

Mercy took off her high heels and started walking around the balcony. The noise made by her heels on the hardwood oak floor would likely wake the eye, and she didn’t want that. Sombra followed her, not needing to take off her shoes because they were basically socks lol. Hanzo just turned stealth mode on for his metal legs and no sound came out. 

With Mercy leading the silent march, they made their way around the balcony with ease. They passed rows and rows of bookshelves on their left, the bookshelves occasionally being interrupted by areas with comfy armchairs next to small coffee tables. They would sometimes stop at those areas and pick up a book or two sitting on the coffee tables. Mercy was using them as a gauge to see how close they were to the incident in question.

After flipping through one of those books, Hanzo found that they actually held fond memories. One was of a Denny’s breakfast from two months ago, another was a recent mission where McCree got Play of the Game. Somehow the fact that the books were left on the coffee table felt symbolic to Hanzo. It was like how sometimes people return to a book or a T.V. show for nostalgia, but never really end up finishing them, so the book or show just end up on the bedside table until they’re put away. Happy little things, revisited often, but never finished. Hanzo put the books down and Mercy led them on. 

While they were walking, Hanzo would errantly take a book off the shelf to read. He was surprised to find that most of the books he picked up had something to do with him, as if providence or McCree’s subconscious was putting them in his hands. They were always pleasant things, which was nice. Hanzo always put them back on the shelf, hoping that they would someday make it to one of the coffee tables and the cushy armchairs that always accompanied them. He wondered then how those books even ended up on those coffee tables, but just let it be. The mind was complicated and inconsistent, and not even years of research could make it less so. 

Hanzo walked distractedly, either looking at the bookshelf wall or the ground the entire time. He was just wondering how far they had walked before he ran into Sombra, who had stopped in front of him. He looked to see what had stopped their forward progression and was gladdened. The bookshelf wall to their left had been stopped yet again, this time not by a silent reading area, but instead a heavy oak door with a worn bronze handle. 

Mercy motioned them over to the door. When they all stood only inches from the door, Mercy did a series of hand gestures that barely made sense but that they both got. “Go through the door quickly, or the Eye will evict us,” those hand gestures said. How Mercy was able to hand signal “evict” is beyond knowledge, but Sombra and Hanzo both got it anyway. Mercy counted to three and opened the door.


	19. Mind Diner

The door made about a mega decibel of noise and they went through quick. It was the kind of noise only really old and really inconvenient doors make; almost always in horror movies. The Eye didn’t seem to notice but they didn’t notice that the Eye didn’t notice so they went as fast as they could. 

When they actually took time to look at their surroundings, they found a metric shitton (that’s about the same as 2.2 imperial shittons if you want to know the conversion factors) of bleach and other cleaning supplies. It reminded Mercy of a hospital, but even cleaner. It was only when Hanzo stood up, and tripped over a broom, that they all realized they were in a fairly large cleaning closet. 

There was a red door at the end of the closet. From that door they could hear pleasant conversations, which was odd. McCree wasn’t know for going to places with pleasant conversation. They peeked out of the door (Hanzo on bottom, Mercy on top, “cartoon eyes coming out of a semi-open door“ style), and what they saw shocked them.

They were in the diner off of Route 66, and there was the smell of bad coffee and good pie. There were a few people sitting around, but they were all blurry, as if their textures didn’t render correctly. It was probably because McCree didn’t care about them and thusly forgot them. 

McCree, or rather, the two mental beings who represented him in this dream-land, were sitting in a booth in a hallway that lead to an exit. They were both drinking coffee and looking at the table.

“This coffee is quite bad,” the glowy eyed Ego stated coldly. The SFC was right in their description of the Ego, it looked exactly like McCree, but with two unnerving glowing eyes. Yet, somehow the Ego seemed less vital, and much more fragile than McCree usually did. It was probably because its face showed no emotion, not even the shadow of one. 

“Yer’ telling me!” The Id sitting across from the Ego yelled, “I don’t know why I even order this every time, it always tastes like boiled dirt!” Surprisingly, the Id also looked exactly like McCree, and actually looked strong and vital. Hanzo liked the Id a lot more than the Ego simply because of that, the Id was stronger than Ego simply because it could actually feel. It also helped that the Id was a lot more human looking than Phineas and Ferb made it look in that one episode where they went into Candice’s head. 

“Never should have come here...” McCree’s voice echoed around the room, copying the thoughts and words of his Id. Hanzo didn’t know what to attribute this too, because neither Id or Ego spoke. He supposed it was probably what McCree said at the time.

Mercy and Sombra were looking back and forth between the McCree’s and Hanzo. Hanzo looked like he was about to start crying again and they couldn’t figure out why. Then, they saw the Ego get up from the booth.

“The time is now. I am going to the meeting… alone,” McCree’s Ego said.

“Fine,” the Id said crossing its arms, “You don’t need me there anyway. I always get so riled up around her.”

“Yes,” the Ego said, unflinching. Then it turned and walked out the door without paying (which means McCree also left without paying which honestly is such an Overwatch thing to do at this point). 

The three people in the closet waited exactly 43 seconds before they flowed like water out of the ocean of bleach and brooms they had called their home. Mercy took the lead again (with her heels off still), and tiptoed her way towards the other door, trying to avoid the Id. Hanzo and Sombra followed suit, trying to be as careful as possible not to attract any attention. They were like the Pink Panther (or whatever), tiptoeing across the floor. 

Suddenly the voice of the Id came from the booth where it still sat,”I know y’all are there. Yer’ alright to come over, ‘n fact I want you to come. We have somethin’ important to discuss.”

Mercy stopped, made the Pikachu face (:0) and lead the other two beings over to the booth.


	20. The Id Isn't an Id-iot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive us for the mess of an upload schedule uwu;; We're in some cheese rn

The three interlopers squeezed in all on one side of the booth, because all of them were afraid of the Id. He seemed menacing somehow, it was something in the eyes. However the Id didn’t seem to care that they had chosen to invade his stalking ground, and in fact made itself comfortable, even taking out a cigarette (something you can’t actually do in commercial buildings but hey McCree’s a rebel. Also this wasn’t even happening in real life). 

The Id puffed on the cigarette, and spoke in his overcooked Southern drawl, “We’ve got ourselves a problem.”

“You already said that,” Sombra said.

The Id took the cigarette out of his mouth, looked at it thoughtfully, and said, “Might’ve. Don’t remember.”

“What’s wrong?” Mercy said. 

“That desperado that just left. You saw him I think,” the Id responded after leaning back in his seat. “He’s bein’ a bit of a dick.”

Mercy gasped at the profanity; but then calmed down, remembering the literal tons of terrible words Overwatch said on a daily basis, most of those tons coming from Reinhardt. Thusly calmed, she asked, “What is he doing? I mean, what’s he doing that’s worse than what Egos usually do?”

McCree’s Id smiled, a worthy reflection of McCree’s own smile, and said, “Well, heh, he’s as imperious and douchey as always. But he’s also killing us very slowly. See, he’s fixated all of our attention on the memory that’s out that door,” he pointed towards the exit.

“And that’s a problem why?” Sombra asked, placing the sass barrier firmly in place. 

It was actually Mercy who answered that question. “Because you’re not with him… and you need to be,” she said, actually sounding worried.

Hanzo, who had up to that point been very silent (he was studying the Id and its mannerisms, and finding them entirely similar to McCree’s), perked up at the worry in Mercy’s voice. He was intent on what the Id had to say. 

“Correctoroni,” the Id said in a laid back way. “Whatever’s out there, it’s pretty damn bad, and I have the sneaking suspicion that ‘logic and reason’ won’t be able to deal with it.”

“Then why are you not out there?” Hanzo asked, piping up for the first time that conversation. 

“Well… that’s-” the Id tried to say before being interrupted by Sombra.

“He can’t. Not powerful enough. The Ego is stronger,” she said.

The Id became flustered and said, “Well now, that ain’t exactly true-”

Mercy interrupted, “Yes it is. In most situations, the Id is basically a weakling.”

“That’s not-” it tried to say again.

“He’s not exactly Candice’s Id from Phineas and Ferb either,” Sombra said. 

“NOW YOU LISTEN HERE!” The Id said, slamming his fist on the table, apparently antagonized quite a lot by Sombra’s final comment. “YOU’VE NO RIGHT TO ANTAGONIZE ME IN MY HOUSE. YER’ THE INTERLOPERS HERE.”

“Yet you need us?” Mercy said. 

The Id’s face had transformed into the vision of perfect anger, something Hanzo had never seen on McCree’s face. Yet for some reason, he actually felt a lot less scared than he originally felt towards the Id. He didn’t understand why the girls were antagonizing it, but he felt like they knew what they were doing. 

The Id sat back a little, that anger still all over his face. “Why are y’all doing this?” he asked, in a softer but no less aggressive voice. 

Mercy’s eyes grew incredibly cold. “You weren’t taking us or this situation seriously.”

“I just felt like it,” Sombra said, flipping her hand in the air flamboyantly.

The Id, still looking mad, said, “‘Aight. Ya, I need you; you can get me out of here.”

Mercy nodded, “You were locked in I assume?”

“Pretty much,” the Id said, still sounding mad (this guy can hold a grudge), “Whenever he resets the memory, I just play along and hope to change things just enough to tag along.” 

“No dice then?” Sombra asked.

“Naw...” the Id said, trying to be casual again and failing. “He’s basically become a skipping record at this point. I need to get there and help McCree process some of this. He’s goin’ to die without me.”

Mercy sat up from the bench and said, “Alright then. We’ll help you get out and get you to the location of the memory.”

“One more thing...” the Id said, standing up as well. “If Mr. Ego tries to stop us, I’m going to need y’all to kill him.”


	21. The Longest Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus :( We're back now tho :)

Getting the Id out of the door was surprisingly difficult, because they all forgot Sombra could hack. The barrier that kept the Id from leaving was a yellowish color, looking slightly like Rein’s shield. The three interlopers were allowed to cross but the Id could not. At first they tried pushing him out, but that only served to make him angrier and make their muscles hurt. Next they tried to move the barrier. They had forgotten that nobody but the Id could touch it and that he also had no luck trying to get out up until now. Finally Sombra remembered her main gimmick and hacked another door next to the one they were trying to use. That one opened without a barrier, and they were off. 

Hanzo was going over the previous conversation in his head. Killing McCree’s Ego? He had caused a bit of a commotion over that, one of the only times he had spoken to the Id the entire time, and he was assured by both Mercy and the Id that it was not only possible, but completely safe as well. They said some psychological jargon that he didn’t understand, but in essence, McCree would be completely fine after that event, should it occur. Still… doing such a thing seemed dangerous. 

He was walking at the back of the group. Mercy and the Id were walking in front, trying to discern where they were supposed to go. Sombra was looking about in the middle of the group, noticing how the general landmarks of Route 66 were the same (she had gone there on many missions, so had all of Overwatch), but how the subtle details like signs and plants were all out of whack. Hanzo was at the back, hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground, and thinking. He was walking in this fashion until he felt Sombra tap him on the shoulder.

“Hey there,” Sombra said, putting on her normal (sass100.exe) voice.

“Hmm,” Hanzo said dejectedly.

“¿Whatcha thinking about?” She asked in an equally playful manner as before. 

Hanzo sighed, “I worry for my husband. Always. I love him, but I am worried.” He stopped talking for a second, and just as soon as Sombra assumed he had finished speaking he began again. “I worry about what lays ahead of us. He does not have any friends outside of Overwatch… so far as I know. Only enemies....”

Sombra inwardly cringed at Hanzo’s terrible use of ellipses (throughout this entire fanfiction it seems), but considered what he had to say. It was true that McCree spent almost 100% of his time inside the Watchpoint or on Overwatch business, and that his only real friends also resided there at that place almost 100% of the time as well. But she didn’t really know a lot about McCree’s past, or Hanzo’s for that matter. She had gone snooping on everyone's backgrounds, including theirs, but didn’t find anything on either of them. “Dust in the wind,” as the 80’s rock band (and non-existant state) Kansas would say. She didn’t really ask either of them about their past whenever they happened to be hanging out, just because it seemed eery that it wasn’t online. She had no idea what the hell their deals were before Overwatch.

Finally, after two years of slight curiosity, she asked, “¿Enemies?”

“Hm?” Hanzo hmed, surprised, so surprised that he actually chuckled. Then he said, “Oh yes, he is a rowdy one. Before he was in Overwatch, even before he met me, he was a part of a gang. I do not know what it was called, but it was something edgy. When he was an outlaw he was hated by those in authority, when he left the gang he was hated by those breaking authority.” He stopped talking, but continued walking, a little quicker this time. He made an odd face, a face one makes when trying to remember something, and said, “I believe he was especially hated by one woman in particular. I do not remember her name… Soot? Cinders? Fallout? I am uncertain. He broke up with her.”

Sombra didn’t respond, which was odd for her. The day when Sombra didn’t have an immediate, sassy response was the day she died. When Hanzo looked at her, he actually found her looking away from him towards a propane shop, ashy faced.

“Hanzo… that gang McCree was a part of; ¿it didn’t happen to be called the Deadlock Gang, did it?” She asked.

“Oh! Indeed! Why do you-” He was interrupted. 

“¡¿You’re telling me that McCree was part of the most deadly gang in world history and you didn’t even remember the name of it?!” Sombra scrasked at Hanzo.

“P-possibly,” Hanzo said, “I did not know what they were called...”

Sombra sighed exasperatedly, mostly because Hanzo really needed to take a class on ending his sentences with real symbols and not just dramatically, but also because she realized this was probably going to be a little bit more difficult than she originally thought. She didn’t even think Hanzo knew what the Deadlock gang was, and would probably have to teach him about (which she really didn’t want to do).

She asked him if he knew what the hell she was talking about, and when he (predictably) said no (Hanzo wasn’t the smartest lima bean man behind the lima bean can) she began to explain to him the history of the Deadlock gang, which every person on planet Earth knew about except Hanzo.

“In the beginning, there was nothing,” Sombra began speaking, “And then eventually stuff started happening, I don’t know. The Deadlock Gang showed up some place in there and killed a bunch of people and went on to do general mischief before just disappearing off the face of the planet after a while. They were probably the ones that blew up that train back there.”

“I see,” Hanzo said, steepling his hands on his chin.

“No you don’t,” Sombra said.

“True,” Hanzo said, with his hands still steepled. Then they moved on to catch up with Mercy and the Id, who weren’t actually that far ahead of them. When they got there, they saw the Id and Mercy both trying to open a big ass metal door.

“How the hell,” the Id muttered under its breath. Then he saw Sombra walk up and said to her, “This door won’t open.”

“Well my friend, I have a simple solution for that,” she said.

 

There ended up being like, 5 doors that were obviously open, like, right beside the big ass metal door they were trying to open. They decided to go up to the highest entrance, because they could all get up there in quick fashion, with their cool abilities (the Id actually had to double back and take the stairs, but he/it was quick about it). 

They walked through a pretty thicc hallway stacked with plenty of real, actual, not even joking, guns. They heard conversation in the other room, a woman and a disembodied voice coming from all directions by the sounds, and followed that.

When they got through the doorway and into the room with the conversation going on, they found it to be a pretty long warehouse filled with even more guns than before. There were even missiles (oh jeez)! The 4 amigos piled on top of each other similar to how they had in the closet, this time with the Id on the bottom. They began to listen to the cheese going on.

The woman’s voice rang out clearly, with a slight echo thanks to the size of the room. It sounded extremely southern, like deep-frying-butter-in-my-backyard southern. Despite that, she sounded like she spoke English, at least provisionally. She sat atop the payload at the end of the hallway, with a very large omnic being behind her. McCree’s Ego was standing below the payload, looking eerily up towards the woman while quietly whispering to itself statistics about the situation.

“McCree!” the white haired woman said jovially, as if hailing a long lost friend. And it only took that much for Hanzo to remember who this woman was. She was Ashe! McCree’s long forgotten ex-girlfriend. Hanzo remembered all the stories now; McCree didn’t much like her. Why he was even here at all was something Hanzo couldn’t understand.

“I’d like you to meet my new boyfriend.” Ashe continued, and at this specific point because they had already talked for about a minute.

“Hey B.O.B...” McCree’s disembodied voice came from all directions.

Meanwhile, McCree’s Ego was still muttering to itself. Of course, from all that distance away none of the 4 in the doorway could possibly hear it, but Mercy tried her best to read its lips. “Big Omnic Boyfriend,” and, “Most likely renaming” were repeated over and over again as far as she could tell.

“Let me guess,” McCree’s normal voice continued, dry as ever, “Stands for Big Omnic Boyfriend don’t it?”

“None of your beeswax!” Ashe said with a sneer. “N’ besides,” she continued, drawling as good as McCree could ever drawl, “That ain’t our business.”

“Ashe, we haven’t had business for decades. If it weren’t for your threats I wouldn’t be here right now,” McCree’s dry tone only got dryer. The longer he was around Ashe the more serious his voice became. Despite that, his Ego remained calculating and cold below B.O.B.’s equally cold stare. The Id bared his angriest face, close to pure fury, at how the Ego was acting. If he were in charge (which he was from time to time), he would have killed that abusive, manipulative little freak right then and there. Alas, he had been overruled, and was now stuck here at the mercy of timing and the three beings above him.

“Oh McCree,” Ashe said, “Yer’ ever so dismissive. We do still have business, you an’ I.”

“I don’t see any business ‘tween us that hadn’t already been settled. You got to keep custody of B.O.B.” McCree’s voice spoke. 

“He wasn’t any child, couldn’t keep custody of him if I wanted to,” Ashe said, “‘Sides, he doesn’t want to leave anyway. Still… not our business. Stop tryin’ to change the subject!”

“Aight’. What do we still have to speak about,” McCree said, and even though Hanzo couldn’t see what McCree physically did in that moment, he could imagine him spreading his arms, awaiting what he had come so far to receive. 

“Hmph.” Ashe moved on her seat that was the payload, and brought out a piece of paper. She handed it quickly to McCree’s direction, and it disappeared into thin air. While McCree assumedly read the paper, Ashe continued.

“I’ve been hired by someone big. She asked me to recruit as many hard guns as I could. It would be dangerous, but she would pay well...” she spoke whilst playing with her hair. “I stated with you because I thought you would work well as one of her generals. At least, if you were still the same little bastard I remember from back in Deadlock.”

The gang all heard paper shuffling sounds, and saw the paper reappear, this time crumpled up. Ashe’s face looked slightly put out, but not surprised. 

“What is this Ashe‽” McCree scrasked. “This d’ain’t make any damn sense! 2nd dimension? What even is that‽” This seeming explosion rose in intensity. Surprisingly, along with this rise in intensity, the Ego actually seemed to be getting into the yelling, creating a weird mirroring effect.

Ashe held up her hands in a “hey I have nothing to do with this” type shrug. “Just doin’ my job cowboy. So I take it you refuse?” She asked this final question with a little smirk forming on the edge of her mouth, but with complete sincerity. It sounded as if she would accept the answer McCree gave. 

“Of course!” McCree’s voice and Ego screamed in tandem. “I have no reason to leave behind my husband and my friends for this. Honestly, Ashe, if you wanted to get close to me you need to come up with a better excuse than this made up garbage! If you’re goin’ to threaten’ my family and my husband, you’d better damn come up with a good reason to do so!”

And though none of them could physically see McCree as he would have appeared in real life, they all saw him place his hand protectively over his guns, ready for whatever Ashe would likely throw at him after a row like that. When he was dating her, Ashe would go nuclear for less than that, he had no reason to doubt it now. 

But Ashe seemed as calm as ever, with that mirthful humor even stronger than before. “Are you sure pumpkin’?” She asked, using the nickname he had always called her with entirely too much pleasure. She continued, “The person I work for knows of you, and she doesn’t take lightly to people who shirk her charity. She won’t be happy, that’s for sure. Are you really not going to take it?” Still with that horrid mirth written all over her face. 

McCree, still convinced this was just a convoluted plot to get close to him said, “I don’t care if your boss is the Empress of the Moon! I won’t take yer’ offer, and that’s final.”

*A grey filter appears over the entire chapter and Rivers in the Desert start playing* Next time on The Love we Feel in the 2nd Dimension; McCree Gets Woke


	22. The Longest Chapter Part 2

A RIVER IN A DRY LAND! THE LAST ACE IN A LOST HAN-!

Oh, this chapter is still going on? I guess that’s just as important as Rivers in the Desert. {https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs btw}

McCree had just issued his ultimatum. His Ego continued to look in Ashe’s direction, seemingly expecting trouble; although it wasn’t really her that he was afraid of. B.O.B. wasn’t much in the way of speech (in fact, B.O.B. didn’t speak at all), but he did have a massive gun implanted in both of his arms.

Hanzo watched this with an expression of confusion on his face (which he almost constantly wore). So far he could see no reason why McCree would be fixated on this memory; it seemed like a pretty normal McCree morning so far. Yet, he realized, Ashe didn’t look done; she still smiled so contemptuously. As if….

“Oh McCree,” she said in a tone to sincere and sorry sounding that it fooled the mind. But it was only a trick, McCree had seen how good she had been at acting kind before.

“You’ll regret yer’ choices in time I think…” She continued, “And sooner than you’d like.” 

It was then that McCree drew his gun. Nobody could see him do it, but they heard the gun belts shuffle. Another indication was that the Ego; it was speaking faster than before, and actually in a “gunslingen’” stance. 

“Oh, that idiot,” the Id whispered below the three Overwatch members. He trembled below them like a broken Keurig machine. ”She’s obviously not scared of you, I thought you and your ‘infinite wisdom’ would see that! Drop the friggen’ gun!” he whispered with exclamation points. 

Luckily, Ashe pretty much repeated the Id’s sentiment. “No need for that,” Ashe said in a complacent way; she wasn’t afraid a bit. “I don’t plan on shooting you, because despite what you might think my employer still wants you! And unlike you I can see a good deal when it comes my way!” She had begun to lose a bit of her composure, as well as a bit of her humor, but that sick smile returned quick. 

“I actually have somethin’ else to give to you… from her of course.” She reached into one of her convenient belt pouches and pulled out an iPhone 402 (the new model had just come out it was so cool you could play Minecraft on it). She threw the phone at McCree, not afraid that he’d catch it. Shooters reflexes were difficult to turn off. 

Like before, the phone disappeared when it got to where the Ego happened to be. There was a slight pause as McCree looked at the phone. The silence was longer than what Hanzo would have liked; there was no assured defamation of whatever was on the phone, meaning it was somehow important. 

“No….” McCree and his Ego said in unison. 

“This isn’t logical! How did they find out!” the Ego screamed.

“This doesn’t make sense...” McCree had said, omitting the final portion of the Ego’s words.

“Makes sense to me boy,” Ashe said, almost trembling with hateful laughter. “You got caught! That’s right! You got caught being a freakin’ Richard!” she continued, actually struggling to hold in laughter.

“Ashe, how did you-” McCree tried to say, but stopped himself. It didn’t matter; they had him.

“Does’ain’t matter, as I think you know.” She said almost crying. “All I’m supposed to tell you is this: ‘Submit. Or all this will be revealed. You have a week. Tell nobody, we will know.’” On that note Ashe calmed down enough to say, “You’ve gotten yourself in a pickle, space cowboy.” She laughed once more and left; no goodbye given, none wanted.

“No….” McCree’s voice spoke without emotion, “It can’t be.”

It was then that the Id drove out from under them all. It jostled up the tower formation they had, and woke Sombra up from the quick power nap she was having sandwiched between Mercy and Hanzo. The Id showed the pure fury of one suppressed. He was yelling before he was even down the stairs.

“HEY ASSHAT,” the Id almost screamed, “WHAT’ CHA GOT THERE‽ HUH! IS IT SOMETHING YOU MIGHT NEED ME FOR! H U H? YOU STUPID, COW DUNG LOOKIN’-” But before the Id could yell any more, he was lock into a cage which had just suddenly appeared. 

“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” the Ego said, “Your presence will only make things worse.”

“Yah huh,” the Id said sarcastically, still angry but unable to yell without looking like a fool. ”Tell me, whatever is there is traumatic enough to keep you looping this memory over and over, and you don’t think that McCree should be able to feel his full range of emotions‽” 

“What you’re saying is incorrect,” the Ego said, still emotionless, “This is the present. I have to deal with this as quickly as possible before things become worse.”

“You can’t be serious!” the Id yelled, forgetting that he kind of looked like a fool, “We’ve been in this memory for at least a full day and you can’t friggin’ remember refreshing it like it’s a stinken’ Chrome tab‽”

“Fool,” the Ego said. “You’re obviously a detriment. GO. AWAY.” 

Just like that the cage the Id was in began to slide away. “Hanzo! Quick!”

Hanzo was already on it. He had aimed the bow mere seconds after the Id left their little tower. Shooting the bow that he had had since childbirth was simple. Just let go. Let go.

 

Hanzo was muttering in the weird spaghetti strainer helmet. “Let go,” is what it sounded like to McCree. He immediately thought of Frozen 4 (the one where Anna and Kristoff get a divorce and Elso (you heard me) goes on a cruise) and that made him immediately wakeful. He sat up in his bead. 

Hanzo had gone under right next to McCree in the bed, so it was obvious why he had seen Hanzo first. But he wasn’t the only one sleeping in their bedroom. For whatever reason Mercy and Sombra were also sleeping, them on the floor. 

Mercy woke up next. She woke up as she often did, screaming. When she was done, McCree asked, “Better?”

“Much. Thanks,” Mercy said.

Sombra was the 3rd to awaken, and she did it a lot quieter. When she saw McCree she flashed him a quick smile and they went into their secret handshake (too difficult to adequately describe in English (if I had time and a degree in physics I might be able to do it justice)).

“Nice to see you awake again,” she said. 

“UwU,” McCree said. 

“UwU?” Hanzo asked from his place facedown on the bed.

“Hey honey,” McCree said.

Hanzo sat up immediately. He asked frantically, “Are you alright‽”

“Better now,” McCree said, “Just needed a quick nap.” They all thought “quick” in their heads with like 37 air quotes, but they let it slide. “Thanks for what you guys did. I know you did somethin’, it’s difficult to remember it all now.”

“Wait,” Hanzo asked, confused, “You remember us in your dreams?”

“Sure!” McCree said adamantly, “It’s all weird now, but I remember you shooting a guy!” He hugged Hanzo. Hanzo didn’t want to tell McCree that he had technically shot McCree’s rational brain, so he didn’t. 

“What did Ashe give to you?” Sombra asked, like the no filtered millennial she was.

“Ah.” McCree said, instantly serious. “You saw that didn’t ya’?”

“Yes,” Mercy said. 

“She gave me a phone full of blackmail.” McCree said instantaneously. “It’s stuff I’d rather not be seen. You three would accept me I’m sure, but the rest might not.”

“Are you going to give in?” Hanzo asked. 

McCree kissed Hanzo’s hand, and said, “Not until I have to. And I don’t have to yet. I remember a little from the first note Ashe handed to me; somethin’ about a ‘2nd dimension’. I had forgotten then, but I guess Emily and Winston were talking about it the other day.” He had remembered the conversation between the two of them, which took place in the pantry doorway. McCree had just wanted to get a bag of Bugles for the Anime Club but was denied entry because he was too much of a pushover to ask them to move. He ended up listening to them talking to them about it for what seemed like years before he just ended up leaving and getting Bugles later. Dark days.

“Good.” Hanzo said, “Never give in.” And the reunited husbands hugged.

When they were done, Mercy tapped McCree on the shoulder.

“We might actually have good news about the 2nd dimension,” she said. “Something that may be useful to you.”


	23. Sombra Dreams of Silly Boys

Activity was fervent throughout the Watchpoint. Within a few days, the first fully documented expedition of the 2nd Dimension would take place. All the persons to go on this expedition were preparing themselves in their own ways. The following 4 chapters are the assorted stories of their preparation:

After Mercy had finished filling McCree in on the discoveries of the past few days, Mei came back from Buffalo Wild Wings; she wasn’t there for basically the entire time. They all ate BBQ chicken wings and laughed about their situation. When they had finished, the 3 ladies took their leave and Hanzo and McCree talked for a while before Hanzo got tired and slept. McCree had enough energy to power the Watchpoint for a few hours, and thusly stayed up all night playing Apex Legends.

Meanwhile, the three ladies were walking and talking down the hall. What they spoke about was mostly triviality (“How’s Junkrat?” “What do you think of Lúcio?” “He seems cool” Etc.), so they never broached the topic of Sombra’s departure. That was all for the best. They didn’t have any idea when Sombra would come back, so it was best they remember each other in good lights and try not to scare her.

Not that Sombra was that scared. She yawned obtusely often and walked listlessly. She didn’t have any reason to be as tired as she was, yet she was. She responded mostly in a listless and only slightly sarcastic manner. The other girls noticed this, but knew through female telepathy that she was just tired. When they got to Sombra’s room, they wished her a good night and that they hoped to see her again before she left in a few days, which they probably would.

When they walked away, Sombra slammed her door shut and sighed way too loudly for way too long. It was a long day, I guess, She thought. Still shouldn’t feel this tired, She continued. She moved over and flopped down on her bed. She looked around the room, noticing the soft purple LED lights she was allowed to install, the K-Pop poster that hung on the opposite wall from her bed (Sombra wasn’t into many things, but she did like K-Pop on occasion), and the nice desk that she had gotten with the gaming PC on it.

In that spread eagled position on her bed, she sighed again. After that, she rolled to her favorite sleeping position, turned the lights low with her hacking powers, not even bothering to get beneath the sheets. Her final sight before she fell to sleep was her stuffed bear Arturo. The bear given to her by one of those silly boys she had known from long ago…

_The memory she arrived_ to _in her dream was one she knew from childhood. She was playing in the park. She used to run there basically every day. She played alone. Except for one day, when she was approached by an equally young little boy. He held a bear in his arms._

_“You’re very pretty,” he said abashedly._

_“Thank you.” she had said._

_“I got you this_ bear. _” he said, holding the bear out to her. It was a medium teddy bear, and it looked very soft. She took the bear._

_“Thank you,” she said. “¿Why did you give this to me?” she asked._

_“Because you’re pretty, and I want you to be my friend.” The boy had said._

_Sombra_ smiled, _and said that she would be happy to be friends._

_Then her dream shifted, and it was the middle of the Omnic Crisis. Mexico was gracefully spared from the genocides in the Caribbean, at least for now. She didn’t go to school often, rather she spent most of her time in her bedroom learning her craft. She didn’t know many people then, but she spoke to some on the internet. One of the boys she knew sent her good advice on hacking; and although he lived in Canada, also gave her a small set of earrings. He was nice. She didn’t hear from him after that._

_After a couple of years, she began to investigate LumeriCo. It was interesting to her. She found out much. Unfortunately, she was found out by those behind LumeriCo. As she ran from being discovered, she drew the attention of a few of the Los Muertos boys, both of which offered to pay for augmentation surgery. She took them up on the offer. As soon as they got too close though, she left. At first, she felt bad, but she couldn’t have them dealing with what was following her as well._

_Finally, through a secure backchannel, she had found a way into the Talon servers. She was accepted into their ranks after that display of her skills. And it was there that the final silly boy had appeared. He had lived in the Caribbean during the Omnic crisis, and Sombra and he become quick friends. She never really knew if he was into her or not, but she didn’t much care either way. Eventually, he left, saying that he had hurt too many_ people, _and that he didn’t want to be evil anymore. Fine. So he left. They had each other’s Discord tags_ though, _and kept communication_

_He had been the last. Talon in those days had been different. Doomfist was silently suffering from incurable cancer, Reaper was just joining, Moira had only been flirting with the dark side at that point. She herself wasn’t really that into Talon, seeing it more as a means to an end. Except… there was one who was fully dedicated to the cause. Widowmaker was very happy to be in Talon. And eventually, after that final silly boy had left, Widow was the reason she stuck around. She was incredibly beautiful…_

At that point, Sombra’s alarm went off. She usually set it for about midday, but today had hit the snooze button in her sleep 14 times. It was like 5pm or something and the text notifications were piling up. She still had another 12 hours or so to get ready, as they were leaving very early in the morning the next day.

Sombra sighed heavily. That final note her dream had ended on was disconcerting. Widowmaker was dead. That was final. “¿But, if that were true, why are you thinking about her? She thought out loud. She didn’t know. “¿And why did you think I think she was beautiful?” She continued. “It’s not like I ever had feelings for her… I’m not gay.”

But even as she said this, she questioned herself.


	24. Winston Helps Punch a Hole in the Universe (again)

“Alright!” Lúcio said, riding on s wall. He was in a dome shaped room that used to function as Winston’s observatory. It looked a lot like that one room in Lijiang Tower that had a domed ceiling (in fact it pretty much was that room without the wall or the little tower thing in the middle). He had like 3 USB chords in his hand. He connected them in seemingly random places all along the friggen’ GIGANTIC portal that took up pretty much the entire height of the room. It was metal with several light bulbs sticking out at random places. It didn’t take up the whole width of the room, and it wasn’t thicc™ enough to have much of a Z-axis.

“Ready Winston‽“ He called after plugging everything in.

“Y U H,” Winston yuhed from the ground. He had is giant ape hands ready on the comically large switch on the side of the portal, ready to make history.

“Let it rip!” Lúcio screamed, intentionally referencing Beyblades®.

Winston used all his considerable strength to throw down the switch, even though that wasn’t necessary. The switch was made pretty much of cotton candy, and even someone as small as D.va could push it down (assuming she could get on top of it). Fortunately for them all, the switch didn’t instantly break in half due to Winston’s strength, and the portal actually began to start up. 

It was very loud to begin with. The electricity running through the machine was enough to power 13 American cities. But eventually the machine calmed down and a steady blue aura began to radiate from the center of the portal. That aura spread until it reached the edges of the metal circle. 

Lúcio fell 30 or so feet, but he was fine because haha no fall damage, and examined his work. The two scientists both looked upon this giant hole in the universe with reverence. 

“We did it.” Lúcio mused. “We actually ended up doing it.”

“This is the 2nd time I’ve split the universe in half like this,” Winston said, with unmistakable pride in his voice.

They stood silent for a few more moments before Lúcio slowly pushed the lever up again. The portal was quieter going out than it was coming in, and the blue aura went away.

Suddenly D.va broke down the door to the room, and screamed, “BABE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT! THEY JUST MADE A NEW HEARTHSTONE EXPANSION!” She stopped when she saw the two scientists staring at their portal. That giant metal ring still amazed her. It took two beings only about 2 days to create something that would probably take NASA several decades to make. 

“What happened?” D.va asked.

“Babe,” Lúcio said, turning towards her, “We’re done.”

“K.” D.va said. “Hearthstone update.” She said holding up her phone.

Lúcio struck the phone from her hand (it was a hologram so it kind of just fizzed for a sec before returning to its phone state still in her hand), and grabbed her by the shoulders. “We’ll talk about Hearthstone later. Right now we have history in our midst!” 

He turned her towards the portal and said excitedly, “How would you like to name the first official portal to another dimension‽” 

Hana put her hand to her chin, thought for about 27 seconds (I counted) and said, “I name it Kyle.”

“Perfect,” Winston and Lúcio said simultaneously. 

“Can I go now?” Hana asked.

“If you want,” Lúcio said.

“Kinda don’t,” She said, “Hearthstone update to talk about.”

Lúcio nodded, knowing that Hearthstone probably needed to be talked about. He didn’t really know how long he had been working on the portal but he missed his baby. He especially missed how excited she got talking about games from 60 years ago (what it’s cute to see people get excited about shit they like). 

But before he got into it with Hana about Hearthstone he turned to Winston and said, “Hey man, thanks for your help!”

“Np, bb.” Winston said. 

“You should probably get some sleep, you’re leaving in like 12 hours or somethin’.” Lúcio continued. 

“Sleep is for the weak,” Winston said, “But I probably should get my stuff together.”

“Good man,” Lúcio said, slapping Winston in the back (he had to be on his tippy skates to get up to Winston’s back).

Then Winston stumbled out of the room because he was tired as hell.

Lúcio and Hana talked into the night about Hearthstone expansion #69: Rise of the Big Ass Snake Monsters.


	25. Genji Sits in the Corner While Doomfist Beats His MEAT (less exciting than it sounds)

Deep in the depths of Doomfist’s bedroom, there was a walk in freezer. He kept a bunch of meat that he used as punching bags in there. For some reason, the only thing Doomfist’s punch couldn’t vaporize was frozen meat. 

Ana and Reinhardt were watching Friends reruns. There was a couch and TV inside Doomfist’s meat freezer. Don’t question it. Reinhardt fell asleep because he was an old man that’s what they do. Genji was also there. He was there just to cry. The freezer was so cold that his tears would freeze before they could exit his tear ducts. He’d been there for the past 6 hours and nobody tried to make him leave. 

Despite being gods, Doomifst and Ana couldn’t stop themselves from clapping along to the Friends theme. (Doomfist was punching along. His clap could destroy worlds). The theme ended and it went to commercials. 

“Genji, you love the Friends’ theme.” Ana tried for the 8th time to cheer up Mr. Sadman. 

“I have no friends, why should I enjoy it?” Genji sassed dramatically.

Ana rolled her eyes at how absolutely pathetic Genji was acting. She stood up from the couch, making sure she didn’t knock Reinhardt over. He pretty much went ragdoll when he was asleep. Sometimes she wasn’t sure he was even alive. 

Doomfist wiped the crystalized sweat from his forehead. “What about Reaper?” He asked. 

“He betrayed me along with the rest of the Anime Club.” Genji started to sob. 

Ana kneeled down next to Genji and held him like a loving mother. She had to act like she cared. Nobody wanted Genji to revert back to his emo phase. He’s on the verge and that’s too close. “Oh, Reaper would never betray you.” She said. 

“Yuh,” Doomfist wiped more sweat crystals off his body. “You should have seen the way he acted when he found you were coming back.” 

Genji sniffed and listened to Ana and Doomfist reminisce about the time when he was away. Reaper would constantly state how much he missed Genji. He eventually made a cork board of Genji photos that he kept in his room. Almost everyone had a screenshot of Reaper’s Snapchat 11:11 wish. It was a picture of Genji with the word “Him” under the time. 

When Genji announced that he was going to return, Reaper danced around the base for about an hour before waiting the rest of the day outside. He wanted to be the first person Genji saw when he got back. 

“It’s adorable.” Ana chuckled. “Almost like he has a crush on you lol.” 

Genji pushed Ana away (not hard enough to hurt her he didn’t want to feel her wrath). “Nani‽ No! We are just good friends!” He screamed softly. 

Ana gave Doomfist a “yuh” look and Genji tried to backflip up but his mechanical parts were frozen together so he slowly rose to his feet. He made his way out the door without another word. He couldn't imagine Reaper having a crush on him (although it was painfully obvious that they both had some serious bromance).

After Genji closed the door, Ana turned to Doomfist. “Ten bucks he and Reaper start dating.” 

“But I’m also on your side of the bet,” Doomfist said. 

“Fine, we’ll make Reinhardt give us the money if they do.” 

By then, Friends was back on so they both sat down to watch. Commercial breaks were pretty long because literally nobody watched TV at that point but people were still trying to make money.


	26. Meaningful Conversation

After the meeting, Tracer decided to go for a long walk/run to Walmart to pick up chocolates and collect her thoughts. Emily went straight into Ana’s room and took her gun. She then went to Torb’s room to “borrow” his Forge Hammer. By the time Tracer got back, Emily had already turned their bedroom into a fully functioning forge.

She entered the room silently, which wasn’t like her. She would usually announce her presence in a room even if she were literally the only person in the Watchpoint (which actually happened once, when everyone else was planning a Pizza Hut surprise party for her that one time). She flopped onto the bed, which was the only place in the room that wasn’t dedicated to doing some weird science experiment with Ana’s gun. 

Emily, of course, didn’t notice Tracer come in. She was too intent on hammering away at Ana’s gun with the same animation Torb has for hammering away at his turret. Tracer sighed very loudly and Emily heard her then. She stopped hammering and thought about her girlfriend for the first time in a bit. Despite Emily’s near obsession with finding Bastion, she had noticed Tracer’s degrading happiness. They had been together for a long time, and even in her mania, she was able to understand when shit was about to go down. 

“Honey?” Emily asked.

Tracer perked up at that. It had been forever since Emily was actually the one to initiate a conversation between the two of them. She saw it as a step in the right direction. 

“Emily!” Tracer began, sitting up. “I brought chocolates! Come sit down.”

Emily did as she was bid and took a Lindor chocolate from the bag Tracer had brought her. They both sat cross legged on the bed; the perfect ‘we need to talk’ sitting position.

“So,” Emily started. She didn’t really know what to say. 

“So,” Tracer said as well. She, too, didn’t know what to say.

After 18 seconds (and 47 milliseconds (Tracer counted)) of awkward silence Tracer began to speak. 

“I just wish you wouldn’t go,” Tracer said. 

“Sweetheart… What do you mean?” Emily asked, knowing the answer to begin with.

Tracer scoffed and rolled her eyes in the patented ‘teen rebellion™™™™’ way. “I’m no scientist. Hell, I can’t even divide by any number bigger than 3. But from what I understand, you’ll be going into a place that has screwed up time. What if you go in there and come back 4 years later‽ What if you never come back‽ And Lúcio said it was dangerous!”

“Relax Tracer,” Emily said as she smiled awkwardly. “All the people going on the trip are experts. At least two of them are immortal. I’ll be fine.”

“But what if you’re n o t‽” Tracer said as she stood up on the bed. 

“But what if I a m‽” Emily said as she continued to not stand up on the bed. 

“Oh,” Tracer said quietly. She sat down on the bed again. They sat again in awkward silence for the same exact amount of time as they had before (18.47 seconds), before Emily spoke again.

“I have an idea,” she said. “What’s stopping you from coming with us?”

Tracer shrugged. All of her favorite people were going on this trip. She had no reason not to go. 

“Come with us. We need help looking for Bastion,” Emily said. But noticing Tracer sagged at hearing Bastion’s name, she added, “And it would be good bonding time.”

Tracer failed to see anything wrong with that statement. She conceded to her girlfriend’s superior intelligence. She was always the smarter of the two of them.

“Fine, I’ll go,” Tracer sighed. Then laughing a little, she added, “It’ll be an adventure!” She then proceeded to flop back down on the bed, in a better mood than she was in before.

Emily nodded, satisfied that she had smoothed things over. She did legitimately want Tracer to come, so that wasn’t a problem. The real problem was that they had to have that conversation at all. Two years ago, Tracer and Emily wouldn’t really have to talk about that kind of thing, because they always did things together. Had Emily really become so distant as to alienate her love? She banished the thoughts for the moment; those thoughts were for therapy. She went back to hammering away at Ana’s gun.

Tracer sat back up, and asked casually, “One quick question. Will you be able to use that thing in battle?”

Emily looked over her shoulder, and said, “Of course. This is Ana’s gun after all. It has a mind of its own.”


	27. Into the Portal

“What do you mean I can’t come‽” McCree scrasked. Then he pointed to Tracer and said, “She gets to!”

“Hey! I’m trying to support my girlfriend! Why do you have to go!” Tracer scrasked back, British politeness turned off in the face of American aggression.

“P-personal reasons,” McCree said, crossing his arms. 

“CHILDREN, BEHAVE,” Ana screamed in all of their minds and also out loud. She then spammed that voiceline 5 more times. Once everyone’s eardrums were broken, she turned to McCree.

“You’re not going because you spent all last night playing Apex Legends and you didn’t pack. She’s going because she packed and then went to bed. Also you had alcohol in the Watchpoint, and Sonic says drugs ain’t cool, so you’re grounded.”

“What! For how long?” McCree asked quieter than before. 

“Idk like a week,” Ana said. “Talk with Doomfist. He’s the Minister of Punishments.”

“I’d rather if that wasn’t my title,” Doomfist added, “But ok.”

McCree sighed and conceded his grounding. He turned to Tracer, took off his hat, and said, “Sorry for yellin’. It ain’t like me.”

“You’re alright,” Tracer said, “I yelled too.” And they both hugged it out. 

Every single Overwatch member was in the portal room, and they still had room to spare. Winston, Emily, and Lúcio were farther away, checking panels and making sure everything was up to snuff. There was a small bleacher set up for people who weren’t going but wanted to sit down and wish their friends good luck. The SFC (Straight Female Club, for those who forgot) was talking with Sombra about the upcoming journey. 

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Mei said, giving Sombra a fist bump. 

“Girl gamer night won’t be the same without you,” Mercy added.

“It’s a big RIP moment for sure,” Sombra said.

“We will await your return,” Moira said to her. “Bring back anything interesting you find, if you would.”

Sombra saluted her aunt and the rest of the SFC. They saluted right back. They had a nice group hug and Sombra went to wait by the portal. She thought about the dream she had the other night as she walked over. She had no real particular reason to, but for whatever reason, it just wouldn’t leave her noggin. After she had woken up, she played a little Apex Legends herself with Baptiste, and they talked on Discord for a while. She didn’t mention the dream, but she felt like she needed to reconnect with him after that kind of experience, for whatever reason. 

She walked over to where Winston, Emily, and Lúcio were standing, and eavesdropped quietly (as she was wont to do). Mostly they were just going over the basics, “Did they have supplies? Did they have enough leftovers to last them a while in there? Weapons all set up?”, that kind of thing. One topic did catch her attention though. 

“Do you have the backup?” Lúcio asked.

“I wouldn’t go in there without it,” Winston assured. He ruffled around in his jetpack that doubled as a backpack. “Here it is!” he said proudly, presenting something that looked like a vape stick. 

Lúcio nodded and said, “Good deal. If you get in any trouble, you have 6 shots. Try not to miss.”

Emily had raised her hand and had waited patiently for Lúcio to call on her. When he did she asked, “What is that? I’ve been a little out of the loop.”

Lúcio took the Juul stick from Winston’s hands and presented it to Emily. He said with a smile, “If you get in any trouble, this acts as a gun. The bullets are really just super small portals that enlarge on contact with biological material. It brings you back through this master portal if everything works right.”

Emily took the Juul and said, “Neato. You’re carrying it, Winston?”

“Sure, unless someone else wants to,” he said placidly.

She thought for a second, and decided, “Nah, you keep it.” Winston took back the Juul and stored it carefully in his weird jet-bag. 

At that point, Tracer had blinked over to their location. She had been talking with basically everyone, saying goodbye as if she’d never see them again. She saw that Emily was adjusting the strap on Ana’s gun (but it was kind of her gun now). Emily then checked to see if the had the biotic grenades she had taken this morning, found that she did, and turned toward Tracer.

 

“You ready babe?” Tracer asked, taking Emily’s hands.

Emily nodded but didn’t respond with words. Everyone on the expedition was here… but Genji. He wasn’t even in the room. That wasn’t odd, he didn’t really ever know when to wake up and never set an alarm. He would stay up so late looking at memes and forget to set it. But as she thought this, she found that she didn’t need to. Genji was in the corner, talking to Reaper. After a few moments, Genji and Reaper stopped talking. They gave each other the BRO9000® hug with 13 back slaps and Genji walked over to the portal. 

“You ready to go Genji?” Winston asked, calm as before. 

“Of course,” Genji responded coldly. “I am no fool,” he added more warmly. 

Winston nodded and turned to Lúcio, who also nodded. They both flipped the switch at the same time, and the portal began to form. The portal was just as loud as before, and the onlookers were awed by its size and brilliant light.

The five expeditioners stood lined up horizontally in front of the portal, with Sombra at the end of the line, chewing bubble gum.

“In we go,” Emily said, holding Tracer’s hand.

Everyone nodded. And they stepped through, into the 2nd Dimension.


	28. In the Woods of the 2nd Dimension

Emily expected the portal to act just like the one Lúcio had constructed in his garage, just walk through and you’re there. It didn’t work like that. As soon as her whole body was in the portal, she was swept away, as if by a hurricane’s gale. Around her, her compatriots were spinning in the strong, blue wind, and she realized that she was spinning as well. Of course, they were all screaming, as was Overwatch tradition. After about 5 seconds, the spinning became more rapid, and the blue surroundings of the portal became brighter. Eventually, the portal became blindingly white and everything stopped spinning. 

Emily was on her feet, surprisingly. She and the rest of her team had exited the portal exactly as they had entered it, as if they didn’t spin around like they obviously had.

Sombra was the first to speak. “Fascinating,” she said before falling face first onto the ground. If there was anything Sombra was weak to, it was motion sickness (and crawfish).

“Winston...” Emily began, “Why did we spin like that?”

Winston silently held in barf. Once he had his acid reflux under control he said, “We made the portal so that it can send us to any location within the 2nd Dimension. Lúcio said that might happen, because it’s basically just buffering us into existence wherever we want to be.” 

By the time he had finished speaking, his acid reflux had returned and he threw up into a nearby bush. 

Genji and Tracer didn’t seem affected as much; they were used to big zippingtons. Emily looked around, trying to figure out where Lúcio had sent them. What she saw was fascinating: she saw a weirdly monochrome forest, mostly purple in tone, with only slight hints of light grey and darker violets. They were on a gravel trail, and obviously in the middle of a moderately sized wooded area. There was occasional birdsong, and it sounded just like normal birdsong; no audio distortion in the slightest. The birdsong had reminded her of Ganymede, whom she had left at the Watchpoint to do as it pleased (which was usually just shitting on Reinhardt’s armor).

As she was increasingly unable to discern where Lúcio had sent them, she became more curious. Eventually, she just decided to ask Winston, who knew just about everything.

“Where did we drop boys?” Genji asked before Emily could.

Winston had stopped barfing and said, “Outside Strasbourg, France, if geography is the same on this side as it is on ours.”

“Why?” Tracer asked.

“Why not?” Winston asked back.

“K,” Genji said. “So what now boss?” he asked at Winistaton. 

“We’re supposed to go into town, if there even is one, and figure out garbage,” Winston said.

By then Sombra had gotten over her motion sickness and had brushed all the dirt out of her hair. “Is that the exact mission statement?” she asked, highly sarcastically. 

“That’s a direct quote from the higher ups,” Winston said. He nodded down the road, eager to head off. “Come on!” he said up tempo like, “There’s a whole dimension to explore!”

 

They walked through the forest for like 5 hours before spotting a building. Between entering the 2nd Dimension and finding the building, most everyone was kind of just doing their thing. Winston, Emily, and Tracer took up the front of the group, just generally talking about their surroundings. Genji and Sombra held the back, just looking around. Sombra felt that if the area around them wasn’t so eye burningly purple, it would probably be idyllic. As she walked, she tried to notice tiny details in the surroundings because she didn’t actually want to think; about her dream, about the mission, anything. All she could discern about the area around her was that things were purple, there were tons of dead bird carcasses alongside the road, and house cats could be heard screaming in the distance (likely the cause of the dead bird carcasses). Thankfully, they had found the building and that had really made things interesting. 

The building, like Sombra’s social life, was on fire. Sombra herself didn’t notice this irony, as she was instead admiring her nail job while everyone else put out the fire. It looked to her that the house had been long abandoned even before the fire had started. She didn’t see the point in putting it out; she had forgotten they were in a forest. Besides, her comrades had the fire out very quickly, so she didn’t even have to care.

She walked up and looked at all her teammates, who were all tired after literally punching a fire to death.

“That was fun,” Sombra said, lightly kicking Genji like a 9 year old would kick a rock across a cement parking lot. “Why?” she asked simply. 

“We are in a forest,” Genji said from the ground. And in a passable ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ impression, he said, “Fire bad.”

“Ah,” Sombra said while walking towards the wreckage of the building. It was made of simple cobblestone and probably had a straw roof before everything went up in flames. She got curious enough about seeing the inside that she hacked herself to be heat resistant (which she could do), and went inside. 

As she expected, there was a lot of ash. But what she didn’t expect was how small the building was. It had to have been the size of her bedroom back at the Watchpoint. It also obviously had none of the amenities of a good home; it had no pipes, no toilet, and no high speed fiber optic connections for a better gaming experience. This shack was obviously nothing more than a roof with walls, even at its peak. While walking around the ashy floor, she noticed there was a square foot of ash that squeaked when she walked on it, which wasn’t something ash was known for. She brushed that section away and found a simple trapdoor, pretty well camouflaged against the ash. It was the same kind of cobblestone as the wall and had no visible handle, except for the small cracks along the side. It was more of a hatch than a door, really. She opened up the hatch, and inside she found a small book. It looked as if the book has been well used, as well as spared from the worst of the fire.

She walked back over to her group with the book in her hands. She had already finished reading it by the time she had got to them, because she was nosy as hell and wanted to know this person’s secrets, even if that person lived in a house the size of a moderately sized guest bedroom. Also, there were only 4 pages in it.

“Whatcha got there?” Tracer asked like Isabella from Phineas and Ferb. 

Sombra closed the book, held it above her head, and said, “Something good.”


	29. The Journal of the Marquis de Strasbourg Part 1

The journal had a rough leather binding, smelling heavily of actual leather. It also stunk of age, as the journal was undoubtedly decades old. The journal’s binding was built to hold several hundred pages, but it was in that size that the largest mystery presented itself. Of the possible 500 pages that the book could hold, only about 6 remained between the covers. It was these three pages that the group puzzled over at their campfire.

By the time the beings had finished punching out the fire, the sun had already begun to set. Winston decided to call it a day right there and set up camp a bit away from the burnt building. Genji offered to collect sticks for a fire, and Emily and Tracer offered to heat up the meal Torb had already packed for them. Winston and Sombra were in charge of figuring out the journal, which wasn’t a good pairing. Sure, they were both capable of deciphering the language of the journal, but they weren’t the best at working together.

And it’s not hard to see why they had such problems. Sombra’s recent dream had awakened emotions she hadn’t felt in forever. It turned out she wasn’t exactly ready to forgive Winston for the murder/manslaughter of Widowmaker. It was super awkward for Winston too, mostly because he had completely forgotten until this moment that he had killed the blue snipe lady. In his defense, it was to save himself and possibly all his friends, so he didn’t feel that bad about it. Still, he was Mr. Awkward to begin with, and the extra guilt of ACTUALLY FUCKING KILLING SOMEONE didn’t help that. 

Still, he tried to speak. “U h,” he began.

“Let me stop you right there,” Sombra said, not even looking up from the journal. “Let’s come to an agreement real fast; I read this book out loud, and you don’t speak. I finish and you don’t speak. I don’t receive your input at all. Sound good?”

Winston saluted like a fucking idiot and Sombra took that as a yes. She looked down at the journal and quietly thanked whatever god there might be that the journal was written in English. She began to read, skipping through bits she didn’t think mattered. It read like this: 

April 15th,

I’ve been hiding out for 2 weeks now. As of yet, there have been no troop movement this direction, although that’s to be expected. The armies will likely be funneled through Paris if anything, just as Master Tama predicted. Of course, that’s not my purpose here, as you likely well know by this point, dear journal. Oh well… the Dark Knight has yet to show their face outside Strasbourg.

I am bored here. I find myself stringing my bow more and more often. I’ve taken to practicing outside now. Master Tama would probably reprimand me for such arrogance, but I honestly doubt that I’ll see a single Imperial soldier during my stay here. Sometimes I think of the war effort down in Portugal. They are noble, those Portuguese, and have fared much better than my home. I hope they’re to hold out a while longer; I hear the Americans have finally mustered a weapon that might prove effective against the Empire. Although, I must not get my hopes up. France and Germany said the same in their time, and both are now under imperial rule.

I must go now dear journal, the bow calls to me. I will speak to you soon. 

-Le Marquis de Strasbourg 

 

Sombra stopped at that point to puzzle over the strange names and allusions that the Marquis had made. She began to speak aloud.

“You think that the Empire they were talking about has some tech from the 1st Dimension?” Sombra asked nobody in particular.

She saw Winston begin to speak, and she held up a finger, waggling it like Sonic does in his first couple games. Not yet, the finger said. Winston shut his mouth. Sombra continued onward.

April 23rd,

I apologize for not speaking with you lately, dear journal. Nothing much happened until today. It was mostly just practicing my archery. However, earlier today there was some drama. I was a fool to think that the Empire wouldn’t leave troops behind in Strasbourg as a policing force. A patrol was sent on a tour of the countryside.

They came by my cottage at the wee hours. I was awake of course, the soldiers were too loud to be ignored. For how clunky they are, I wouldn’t imagine they’d be as deadly as they are. Two of them came and knocked at my door. I was prepared by then, as I always am. I have my peasant clothes on pretty much constantly now, so I looked the part of my humble home.

They began by making the traditional salute in my direction, expecting me to make it back at them. Of course, I did. I’ve come to hate that horrible, hand over heart salute. They asked if they could enter my property and entered before I could give my permission. That much is to be expected by this point. Empire soldiers have received so little resistance that they expect none in any situation. These particular soldiers looked young enough, the likely recruits. Their white and blue armor clanked with all of its usual cocophanousness. The soldiers were tall, brown haired Frenchmen. That’s the worst part; even my own people have betrayed me. 

They sat down on my seats and began to speak. I will try and transcribe what they said, for the good of my memory when I report back.

“What a lovely shanty,” one of them said, condescendingly. Of course, my shack isn’t at all lovely, I know that as well as any other. 

I thanked him to the best of my ability, trying not to allow contempt to seep into my voice. Thankfully, I was able to keep myself calm.

The other man, the leader of the two by his stature, nodded. He took up the speaking role then. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “We’ve come out here on the behalf of our superiors. We’ve been asked to interview the countryside.” 

“Is this your first stop?” I asked, motioning to my window, indicating that it was still some time until sunlight. 

The lesser soldier nodded his head and said, ”Yes. Had to wake up so early that we missed rations. It would be nice to eat something.”

I, of course, would have to be an idiot to miss a hint like that. I went to my small pantry and got them the best bread and produce I could find. I gave it to them both. The leader ate what he was given and thanked me for it. The lesser, as I came to call him in my head, simply nibbled the end of the bread and made a sour face. I could see he was about to make a fuss, but his superior gave him a stern look, and he subsided.

The superior turned back to me. He spoke with the air of one in authority, as I expected he would when he got the opportunity to. 

“This won’t take long,” he said. “We just have a few simple questions for you to answer. Completely standard.”

I nodded and told him to ask me his questions, as polite as I can manage. 

“Are you loyal to the Empire?” he asked to begin with. 

“Yes,” I lied. You know. Like a liar. 

“Have you paid your allegiances to the Empire?”

“Of course,” I lied again.

“And, what would your name be?”

I gave my fake name. It’s so stereotypically French that it feels wrong to write it in you, dear diary. But it’s a name nobody will suspect.

“If I check the registry, you will be in it?” the leader of the two soldiers asked. 

“I have no reason not to be in it,” I said, truthfully for once. I am sure that Tama and his courtiers have hacked the system they use. My cover is as secure in that regard, I’m almost certain. 

“Last question; you wouldn’t happen to have any contact with an Amélie Lacroix, would you?” And let me tell you dear journal, how afraid I was in that moment to hear my own name.


	30. The Journal of the Marquis de Strasbourg Part 2

Sombra stopped reading at that point. She recognized that name, even if it was vague. Widowmaker had always given her name as just that: Widowmaker. But her real name was Amélie, Sombra knew that much. She decided to keep that information to herself for now, and continued reading. 

In that moment the world seemed to slow down. I looked around for any way to extricate myself, finding little. My bow was still hidden in the backyard, or else I probably would have killed both of them. Because I couldn’t get to it, I quickly glanced over the bulbous gun the soldiers carried. If I could just get my hands on one of those… no, I decided that wouldn’t work either. I could probably take the rude one’s gun by surprise, but the soldier in charge would have me by that point. And besides, the guns were too large, too clunky. I’d never be able to handle one without wearing those done up metal suits the foot soldiers all wear. Best to try and talk myself out of the situation.

“Ma’am. Would you like me to repeat the question?” the polite soldier asked. 

“No, I heard you fine,” I said. “I haven’t seen Lacroix around in ages. I know of her, but I have no affiliation. Didn’t she run off with that rogue group of vigilantes?”

The lesser soldier nodded his head, not liking his place as the quiet observer it would seem. He said, “You know about that! That information is highly classified! How did you get ahold of it!”

The soldier in charge was closer than ever to chewing out his compatriot, I could feel it. I would have liked to see that, but alas, the soldier shot his unruly compatriot a stern look and asked me to explain. 

“I’ve lived in this area a while,” I explained, feigning nonchalance. “It was big gossip around here.”

The rude soldier looked at his superior with a face that asked, “do you really believe this?” It turns out, that he did. He stood up, thanked me for my time, and commanded his compatriot to follow him. All the while, the lesser soldier was complaining. I feel secure in the knowledge that they will both have no memory of me by the time the sun reaches its zenith. They really have no reason to remember me, being as powerful as they are, especially when compared to someone as weak as I put on. The polite soldier was nice to me, but he honestly didn’t have to be to get his job done. That’s what is most scary about the Empire, even their foot soldiers are killing machines. 

Oh well, what’s done is done. I will forget about that experience for the time being; but you won’t of course. You’re so helpful, dear journal. I can speak to you like I cannot with any human. I can write my worries in you and can be satisfied that no judging will occur. For example, I worry that I have been here too long. 3 weeks is a long time to go without doing anything worthwhile. 

I know, I know. I’ve been ordered to stay here, for the good of the Rebellion… but the good town of Strasbourg calls to me; and the Black Knight. I need to figure out what he’s up to, and I’m not getting anything done just sitting here. I hope to get orders soon. In the meantime, I’ll continue my archery.

-Le Marquis de Strasbourg

“Rebellion,” Sombra muttered before placing a bookmark into the Marquis’ journal. “I wonder...” she continued, “No. That’s stupid.”

Winston had been quietly sitting at the fire, legit just poking it with his big finger. He was getting annoyed at Sombra for not letting him speak, and annoyed at the cats screaming in the distance for interrupting the story every 15 seconds. Tracer, Emily and Genji had come back and started their deals as Sombra had read through the journal. Emily was now intently looking over weird looking graphs while Tracer and Genji tried to figure out how they could heat up Tupperware containers of food on an open fire. They may have looked busy, but they were listening to Sombra speak as intently as Winston was. It was the tea they lived for.

Winston took a chance. “What?” he asked, innocently enough. 

Sombra didn’t acknowledge him. She looked over at the rest of the squad, and asked, “Did you get all that?” They all nodded. “Good,” she said, “I don’t want to have to repeat myself. Come in closer, there’s a page left.” She continued reading. 

April 27th,

I’ll have to keep this quick, journal. I have gotten orders. Le Petit Agneau (whom you need no introduction to, I’ve raved about him enough to you dear journal) came around and gave me Tama’s scroll. He didn’t stay long. Still can’t stand me, I suppose. I still don’t know how he gets around so fast, but that’s besides the point. 

The orders go as follows:

-Go into town, bring nothing but the bow and enough provisions to sustain myself for a few days.  
-Leave everything behind (even you precious journal)  
-Find out what I can on the Black Knight and his activities in Strasbourg.  
-Go all the usual places for avoiding surveillance, I should be alright.  
-Get out of there unscathed. 

To act as a distraction, I plan to set my little hut on fire, to draw out whoever is closest, and sneak into town behind them. Because I can’t take you with me, I’ll place you in my secret little compartment. Those behemoths with their giant boots will never notice your little hidey hole. I don’t want to tear from you like I have in the past, not until I can get your pages with the rest of you of course. I will come back for you, you can count on that much. And if you’re kidnapped, well… I’ll get you back. Even if it means going up against Symmetra herself; God help me for even writing her name. Au revoir dear one. 

-Le Marquis de Strasbourg.

“Bruh sound effect #2,” Winston said, finally free from silence.

“That’s… interesting,” Emily said. 

“What is?” Genji asked.

“The person the Marquis mentioned is my Uber driver,” Emily said. “Symmetra, that’s her name,” she continued. 

“Oh,” Genji said. “That’s a coinkydink.”

“I’m sure it is, but like...” Emily was stopped by Sombra loudly shutting the book. She was just looking at the leather cover, and frowning. 

“Sombra?” Emily asked, “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Sombra said. “But, if the Marquis just burned down her house as we were showing up… doesn’t that mean that soldiers should be here by now?”

She was right, of course. Sombra was rarely wrong, except for when Moira was involved; she was consistently wrong then. The soldiers should have seen the smoke of the fire by now, even if it had been put out. Sombra didn’t expect that they’d just ignore a fire in the middle of a forest. 

“Where are they?” Sombra asked under her breath.

But it was too late. Three figures had appeared from behind the burnt remains of the shack, two tall, dark haired Frenchmen, and one perfectly imposing figure in black armor. 

“Why, we’re right here,” the Black Knight said with a woman’s voice. 

The Black Knight’s visor was down, and her eyes weren’t visible at all. They weren’t as tall as the two men flanking her, but she was scarier than both of them. At her side was a black metal flail about the size of Winston’s face.

The Black Knight stalked menacingly towards the expeditionary force, hands behind their back. And then, the Black Knight said, “Now, how exactly should we punish intruders to our dimension… Torture? Maiming? Execution‽ Personally, I can’t wait to find out.”


	31. Battle Sequence

“Capture them,” The Black Knight said to her underlings. 

“Yes ma’am,” the one on the right said.

“No problem,” the one on the left said, hoisting his gun. 

It didn’t take long for Sombra to identify the two soldiers from Widowmaker’s journal. It also didn’t take her long to hack them 300 miles away.

“Holy heckeroni!” Winston screamed.

“Haha epic gamer moment,” Sombra bragged.

“How did you do that‽” Tracer asked, amazed.

“Well, it’s really quite-” the Black Knight’s flail hit 3 inches away from Sombra’s head, on a tree. The tree was instantly snapped in half. “I’ll tell you later,” Sombra said quickly before getting a into battle stance. Her entire team was in battle stance in fact. Winston had turned on his tickle gun, Genji had pulled out his fidget spinner shurikens, Tracer had turned on her weird guns, and Emily had hoisted Ana’s gun. Sombra herself turned on her hacker juices and loaded her real actual gun that could actually shoot bullets. They kind of just stood there waiting for the Black Knight to do anything. She had retracted her flail now, and was now hefting it menacingly. 

“Nice little trick,” she said. “They’ll be back soon enough, if your sorcery works like I think it does.”

“Um no you’re wrong they’ll be back in exactly 420 minutes,” Sombra said, looking at an imaginary watch.

“Soon enough,” the Black Knight said again. “But I don’t need them,” she said as she hefted her flail, “I’ll gut every one of you myself.”

“U h,” Winston said, calculating a comeback. “Your mom!” Winston said after finally coming up with an insult he could be satisfied with (for being the smartest person on planet Earth, you’d think he’d be able to think of a better comeback).

The Black Knight was unimpressed. “No u,” she said before swinging her flail straight at Winston’s face. The flail traveled crazy fast for something that was absolutely solid steel, as if it were propelled by rockets. It would have certainly split Winston straight in half if he hadn’t expected its arrival even before he had said his horrible comeback. He lay flat on his stomach, spread eagled, and prayed to the gods of science that the flail wouldn’t kill anyone. The flail flew over Winston’s vital organs, thankfully, but it grazed his science pack a little. But it wasn’t anything a little Elmer’s Glue wouldn’t fix. The flail embedded in another tree and the 5 Overwatchers split up. 

Genji and Tracer did their epic DPS moves and circled around the Black Knight. By the time they had actually started shooting while circling, the Black Knight had begun swinging her flail around her head, creating a small ring around herself where relatively little amounts of ammo could get through. Not that she couldn't take a few cannon shots and keep going to begin with. The flail would occasionally hit in front of where the fast dpsers were going to be, thus making them almost trip. 

Then, she saw an opening. Tracer had forgotten to tie her shoes that didn’t have laces, and had tripped over her own leg in place of the laces she would have tripped over otherwise. In that moment, the Black Knight stopped swinging her flail, and projected the end of the flail right into Genji’s stomach like Trevor Belmont from Castlevania. Genji flew across the battleground; over the burnt remains of the Marquis’ cottage. Meanwhile, Tracer got over her trippage and teleported to a minimum safe distance. 

Emily, seeing Genji get fucking yeeted over a building, remembered that she was a healer and ran over to help him out, hoping he wasn’t already dead. She looked over her shoulder as she ran over to Genji’s side, and saw things turning in their favor. Against all odds, Winston and Sombra were actually working together against their adversary.

Winston had out his stun gun and was deftly dodging the Black Knight’s flail movements. Like a seasoned chess player, Winston knew her moves 13 days before she did, and despite being a giant gorilla, was pretty good at crouching and jumping really fast (like everyone in Overwatch, of course). Sombra was farther away, shooting at the flailing beast while trying her darndest not to kill Winston in the process. She was waiting for her ability to hack the universe again, but unfortunately, her last hack was too large, and made it impossible for Sombra to call on the hack powers again. Best she could do was shoot. 

Their offensive was actually working, and the Black Knight had to go into a defensive position. She stopped swinging her flail around like she was a Castlevania protagonist and pulled out a small personal shield. The shield wasn’t on her before, both Sombra and Winston were sure of that. It looked as if she pulled it out of mid air! It rose blue and transparent before them. The Black Knight began to move forward again.

Winston, at this point basically reading the Black Knight’s mind, could tell that this kind of movement was scary and backed up as quick as he could. Sombra took the memo and did the same. They were both unknowingly taking note of how little damage they had actually done despite their apparent upper hand. The Black Knight hadn’t even suffered a scratch on her armor despite practically absorbing bullets. They pushed onwards anyway, hoping that the bullets were teleporting through the armor and into the Black Knights body (like Winston’s stun gun could (and did)).

The fight had passed the 5 minute mark, and Genji and Emily were running back around the building. Genji had begun screaming very loudly after Emily (or more aptly, Ana’s gun) had healed him. This behavior scared and confused Emily, but she went along with it because she assumed Genji knew what he was doing. Of course, he didn’t know what he was doing, but he would try his darndest all the same. As he ran towards the Black Knight, he began to pull out his awesome anime power sword. 

“*Japanese Screaming*” Genji said, and the sword was released. He was promptly slapped in the face by the Black Knight’s shield. He was stopped dead in his tracks for two reasons: 1). He didn’t expect it 2). It hurt really fucking bad. He stumbled backwards, swearing to himself in Japanese while holding his facemask.

As that happened, Tracer was zipping through the trees looking for an opening to throw her pulse bomb. She had gotten it a few moments earlier, but refrained from charging in like Genji because unlike him, Tracer had functioning eyes and could see that the shield was sus’ as hell. After seeing Genji get scapapped (screwed and capped), she saw an opening. Super fast, like a bat out of Hell, or like Reinhardt to a cargo shorts sale, Tracer zipped behind the Black Knight. She was facing Emily milliseconds later, bombless. They stared at each other as a rather loud bomb sound went off. 

“Excellent job Tracer!” Winston called from behind her.

“Did I get her?” Tracer asked Emily.

“Sure did!” Emily said excitedly as well as tiredly. She had realized about as soon as Genji started screaming that being a healer was exhausting, if rewarding. She had a hell of a time keeping everybody topped off at full health. She could appreciate now why Mercy was so anxious. It was difficult being the only person in your team that is allowed to give others life. It was like owning house plants-

Emily was distracted from these thoughts as the Black Knights apparent corpse started to wiggle about. She stared at it and alerted Tracer to it as well. Everyone but Genji had their weapons at the ready, and Genji was holding up his fists in the opposite direction of the Black Knights body. The shield bash had broken his artificial sensors and he didn’t know what was going on. The Black Knight was on one knee, supporting herself on her flail. Surprisingly, her armor still didn’t seem scratched. There seemed to be no physical injury at all; except that couldn’t possibly be true. The body underneath the armor was still flesh… at least, they assumed. 

“Enough of this,” the Black Knight yelled. “We’ve all had our fun now. I’m done messing around….”

She grabbed a rectangular can from her tool belt, opened it slightly, tossed it on the ground, and yelled, “GLORY TO THE EMPIRE! GLORY TO THE 2ND DIMENSION! COME MY, CHILDREN, RISE AGAINST THESE HEATHENS!” 

“Uh,” Winston said, “That’s a slightly open can of tuna.”

“Ya!” Sombra said flippantly, “You think we’re scared of-” 

She was interrupted by an ear splitting yowl from behind them. It was then that she remembered her walk in the forest. She had heard cats. Now that she had thought about it, she had heard a lot of cats. The yowling in the woods was almost constant when they were walking around. She remembered the bird carcasses on the side of the road. It was just a passing thing, cats and bird carcasses, she had almost forgotten. How many carcasses had there been? A lot, she remembered now, a whole lot. And the strangest thing of all? As soon as the Black Knight had shown up, the screaming had stopped. She hadn’t noticed at the moment, but it was true. But they were just cats, she thought. How many cats would it take to pose a challenge, 1000 cats? 2000? And would they even hurt them? 

They turned around to see a black mass of 5000 cats. Assuming each cat weighed a minimum of 8 pounds, that would still mean it was 40,000 pounds. Saying it weighed about 13% of a blue whale makes it seem small, but in actuality, the mass of cats in this black ball weighed more than three elephants. It was clear that there was an internal struggle to keep the structure standing, as well as separate cliques and factions of cats formed within the mass. The factions were distinguished mostly by the look of each separate cat, but a keen eye could see a circle in which only certain cats “talked” (in as much as cats can talk) to each other. It was a horrific sight to see. 

“My children,” the Black Knight said.

“Receive thy meal,” she continued, and the 5 of them could hear the sneer in her voice. 

The literal wave of cats was on them in seconds, and they knew then that Hell was made of claws and teeth.


	32. The Black Knight

As her children ravaged the newcomers, the Black Knight leaned on her flail. although, she didn’t think of herself as the Black Knight. She would always be Brigitte in her own head. She held her stomach through her armor. The ape’s gun had certainly stun like hell. She was wondering if she’d need to go to the doctor when the buzzing sensation in her stomach stopped. Her stomach cells were reacting to her Rally Field and were fixing themselves, she assumed. When she felt like she wasn’t going to throw up anymore, she stood up, flipped her visor, and looked at the writhing mass that was her legion. 

From the black mass, a single cat emerged. It was Sprinkles, Brigitte’s favorite, her head priest. He was designated to speak to her by the mass.

Insomuch as cats can speak, Sprinkles could speak the best. Brigitte could understand Sprinkles as if he were speaking English.

“Meow-ow,” Sprinkles wiggled. Brigitte translated it almost by nature into English.

“Mistress,” Sprinkles said. “There’s news,” he continued.

She picked him up in a way that made him look like Long Cat and said, “Speak my child.”

The cat made a bunch of mewls that meant, “We seem to have lost them. We’ve not eaten them, of that we’re certain.”

“What do you mean?” Brigitte asked with a quizzical face. 

“They’ve disappeared,” Sprinkles reported. 

Brigitte turned towards the writhing mass that was her progeny. “Spread yourselves,” she commanded. They did so immediately. The 5000 cats quickly split themselves out around the forest; not so far that they couldn’t be called back though. Brigette glanced over the area left by her legion, and saw that it was empty. She was holding Sprinkles in her arm like a child, and was stroking him lovingly. 

“Are you certain they’re gone?” Brigitte asked. 

Sprinkles meowed at the seemingly empty forest, and got several feline responses. “The Legion is certain. And they didn’t eat them, of course,” he said.

“This is odd,” Brigitte said. “I’ll have to report this… begone with you, child.” Sprinkles jumped out of Brig’s arms gracefully, allowing his mistress to call her own.

Brigitte pulled out her communicator from her toolbelt. It looked exactly like the communicators from the Star Wars prequels, and functioned the same as well. 

By this point, Brig had fully taken off her helmet and had begun untying her hair. She liked to look presentable for the boss, and she felt that her helmet restricted that. Finally, after doing a little more basic touch ups, Brigitte pressed a small button on the front of the communicator, and her call was placed directly to Symmetra.

The speed at which Symmetra had answered the call was unprecedented. She was sitting on her throne, which looked a lot like Emperor Palpatine’s throne, with one leg going over a leg rest. All this was visible, albeit in a blue holographic sheen. 

Symmetra smiled on her throne and said, “Ah, my Black Knight. How are things in Strasbourg? Good, I’m hoping.”

“Things in Strasbourg couldn’t be better ma’am,” Brigitte said. “We’ve still made no progress on mining, unfortunately. But otherwise, the population is obedient, and the soldiers are content in their jobs.”

“Excellent,” Symmetra said. “I’ll have to send you better mining equipment. I might even come myself if the search becomes too difficult.”

Brigitte bowed to her mistress and said, “That shouldn’t be necessary.”

“Alright,” Symmetra said, “Why do you call me, Freya?”

Brigitte bristled at Sym’s pet name for her. Whenever Symmetra got playful, Brigitte was caught off guard. It wasn’t usually like her. However, it wasn’t a bad thing.

“My liege-” Brigitte began before being cut off.

“No more formalities,” Symmetra said, “Not between us. Speak your peace.”

“Certainly,” Brigitte said. She relaxed visibly. She continued, “Overwatch is here.”

Symmetra nodded on her throne. “The Author has written them in to our path,” she muttered, “They’re early...”

“You expected them later than this?” Brigitte asked, chuckling a little. “They’re right on time as far as I’m concerned.”

“The Author confuses me,” Symmetra said, squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Their idea of a proper story structure is flawed at best.”

“I’d say it’s right on. We’re on the cusp of ruling the world, and we’re finding the rest of the artifacts right now. Why wouldn’t they begin the rising conflict section around now?” Brigitte asked.

“Maybe...” Symmetra said.

“Either way, it’s an issue,” Brig continued. 

“I agree,” Symmetra said, “I will be sending reinforcements.”

“Alright,” Brigitte said, shifting on her feet. “I’ll receive them willingly. Why do you think they’ve come?”

Symmetra shrugged on her throne, “Might be our recent activity, might be the robot. It’s uncertain.”

“Couldn’t be that you’re trying to recruit the cowboy, could it?” Brigitte asked. 

“It might be, but I doubt it,” Symmetra said, “Ashe says that he wouldn’t dare reveal our hand, lest she reveal her blackmail.”

“I see...” Brigitte said.

“All will be well,” Symmetra said. She fiddled around with a bracelet and said, “I’ve just sent reinforcements to your location. And the cowboy won’t be a problem either… I have another candidate in mind, should he turn out to be unconvinced.”

Brigitte nodded. Neither of them really spoke for a little bit. Finally, Brigitte said quietly, “I miss you. I want to be done here so I can come home.”

“And I want you here as well, my love,” Symmetra said. “But there’s the matter of the relic to contend with, and I trust only you to oversee it.” 

Brigitte smiled and said, “I know… it won’t be long.”

“I know it won’t,” Symmetra said with finality. And with the traditional goodbye of the Empire, she said, “Goodbye, dear one. May they write you a good story.”

“For you as well,” Brigitte responded and turned off her communicator.

The Black Knight, Brigitte Lindholm, sighed. She turned towards the burnt out house behind her and wondered to whom it belonged to. She wondered if the person was ok, realized she didn’t care, and began to walk away.

“Come, my children,” she called out to the forest around her. “There will be a feast tonight, you won’t want to miss it.”

She trudged down the dry gravel road with around 5000 cats behind her. She happened to wonder where her “bodyguards” had been sent to, and wondered if it was worth disciplining them. She decided that it was, if only to relieve her own stress. 

“Only the rude one though,” she whispered to herself. “He deserves it.” 

She smiled craftily and thought up ways to hurt her misbegotten bodyguard, as she trudged her way down the gravel road, in the forest, in the 2nd Dimension.


	33. Mercy Performs Emergency Surgery

As soon as the mass of cats had fell on her, Sombra had passed out. Mostly, it was the simple weight of the cats above her, and the pain of course. But, she also passed out because of the sheer unimaginable terror of it. Nobody expects to be crushed by an elephant when they wake up in the morning, especially if that elephant was also covered in fur, teeth, and claws. While she was asleep for most of what would happen next, she would no less appreciate it. 

Winston was thankful that they were all close together when the wave hit. He yelled at Tracer, Emily and Genji to stay close to him, and he picked Sombra’s (seemingly) lifeless body. He turned so his back was to the flow of cats, thus shielding his compatriots as best he could. The flow went up and over him, as well as around, and the occasional cat was able to scratch at Tracer and Genji, who were forming a protective circle with Winson around Emily and Sombra. Winston’s back was getting a heavy beating, and he was just glad that it was mostly covered by metal. He pulled a Juul out of his pocket.

“Winston!” Genji screamed, “Now is no time to vape! How do we get out of here‽”

Winston, to his credit, ignored Genji and didn’t overly explain the function and purpose of his Juul-looking device. He simply pressed a small button at the end of the stick, pointed at Sombra, and she disappeared in a blue flash.

“Oh!” Genji said.

Winston quickly shot Emily, before she was able to protest. Winston, Tracer and Genji held their protective circle but huddled in a little. Winston took a second to wonder why the cats around them flowed so much like water before shooting Tracer as well. He then corrected himself, thinking it was more like razor blade water than actual water before shooting Genji. He then curled into the “tornado drill” position and shot himself straight in the chest. His vision became bright blue and his vision began to tumble violently, just as it did when they had stepped through the Master Portal. Just when everything was getting just a tad too spinny for Winston’s taste, he suddenly stopped spinning, and was standing outside of the portal, which was even then shutting down.

Lúcio was just standing there, sipping at a Starbucks Frapalapaccino from the secret menu. He had stopped mid sip when Sombra’s (seemingly) lifeless body fell through the portal when he was just doing routine maintenance. He had continued not drinking when 3 more unconscious people fell on the floor. He had begun drinking a little bit but then stopped again when a fully awake Winston teleported in as well.

Winston, who was feeling great (adrenaline had never coursed through his body that much before), was standing there waiting for Lúcio to begin sipping again. Eventually, he did begin sipping again. 

Winston said simply, “We ran into some trouble.”

Lúcio choked on his Frapalapaccino a little and concernedly asked, “Are you all alright‽ You’ve been in there for days!” 

“Never better,” Winston said before passing out from blood loss. 

 

When Winston woke up, it was 3 days later. While he was surprised he wasn’t dead he wasn’t mad about it. He tried to sit up and found it impossible. He tried to move his arms, and that too was impossible. He attempted to form a rational thought, and due to all the drugs he was on, that was also impossible. He instead just listened to the commotion happening to his right.

“Moira,” Mercy said in her surgeon's voice, “Pass me that blowtorch over there.”

“Certainly,” Moira said as she did just that.

“Honestly Angela,” Genji said, “I am all right. You have healed me just as well as you always do.”

Mercy flipped on a welder’s mask. “It’s better to be safe,” she said as she started the blowtorch.

“Do I haaaave to,” Genji whined, “I hate the blowtorch.”

“I insist,” Mercy said. “I want to make sure that your flesh remains intact. If one of those cats got you under your armor… well I don’t want to think about the infection that would cause.”

“But you have already hit me with your healing sauce! Would the wound not close if you did that?” Genji asked.

“Normally yes,” Mercy said, “But for whatever reason, the wounds from the 2nd Dimension just don’t seem to heal the same way. Look at Winston over there. He’s been under Moira’s weird mist bath for the past day and we still needed to treat him traditionally.”

“Basically,” Moira said, slightly snootily, “She’s saying that the only way to heal wounds from the 2nd Dimension is to do it the old fashioned way.”

“I have ears,” Genji said, hatefully. And then Mercy began to blowtorch Genji’s side. He didn’t scream or anything. It wasn’t painful, it just tickled a lot, and to keep his epic anime composure he needed to keep concentrating on not laughing. If he laughed, his entire identity of awesome ninja man would be out the window. He also couldn’t show joy in front of Moira, not after what she did to him. 

On Winston’s left, Sombra was sitting at her laptop. She looked odd in a hospital gown. It was against the law for Sombra not to wear her trench coat, at least in Winston’s eyes. She didn’t seem that injured either. She was paler than normal, but the only bandage he could see covered a small cut on her temple.

She looked up from her laptop and glanced over at him. When she saw that he was awake she said, “Oh, sup.”

“Hey,” Winston responded in a raspy voice.

Sombra turned to look at Moira and said, “He’s awake auntie.”

“Excellent!” Moira said, turning towards Winston. “So!” she continued, “How’s the back?”

“Fine,” Winston said.

“That’s probably because you’re on like 13 horse tranquilizers right now,” she said. “You honestly shouldn’t be awake for another 4 days,” she chuckled.

“Ah,” Winston said, seeing the logic, in her statement. And following that same logic he passed out for another 4 days. 

Moira patted him on the head while he snored really loudly; like so loud that it shook Doomfist’s scotch lounge from way across the Watchpoint. Doomfist was annoyed by this, but continued sipping his scotch anyway. He was reading Moby Dick while sipping on Glenlivet in his scotch lounge, being shaken from across the Watchpoint by Winston on heavy amounts of drugs. All this, of course, doesn’t matter at all.

Meanwhile, back in the infirmary, Tracer and Emily were in the beds across from Genji and Sombra. Mercy and Moira had to put a bed in between them to keep them from fighting, which they did quite a lot of after they had both woken up. Neither had sustained major damage, but Mercy insisted on keeping them for a while longer for testing. The fighting was normal Tracer v. Emily stuff; “You didn’t have to come! You got hurt!” “I was the only one who volunteered! And it isn’t that bad” “You almost got your head bitten off by ravenous cats!”, that sort of thing.   
In the end, they both just decided to sleep facing away from each other while Mercy finished up fixing Genji. She was a surprisingly good mechanic (she minored in engineering for her BHS) and had patched Genji up by the time Moira had put a breathing mask around Winston’s face to reduce his snoring. It didn’t help but it was the best she could do. Mercy turned off the blowtorch and threw her welder’s mask in the corner, where it promptly vanished in a pile of garbage Mercy had yet to clean up. She had been cooped up in there for three days, only occasionally getting lunch delivered from Torb or Pharah. She had begun throwing her Chick-fil-a wrappers in the corner like an ingrate. Either way, she wouldn’t need it again; Genji was all good. 

“You’re good Genji,” Mercy said, “Not a scratch on you.”

“I did tell you,” Genji said, folding his arms.

“I think I can release you,” she said. “You don’t have any 2nd Dimension sauce I need to take care of. Unless there’s something else wrong.”

“Other than emotionally?” he asked sarcastically.

“I hope that’s a joke,” Mercy said. “As the Overwatch counselor, I would have to admit you for even longer and talk about your feelings, if you were serious. I get the feeling neither of us want to do that.”

Genji held up his hands, “Only kidding. I will be on my way.” His business there was done, and he had memes to look at. He stood up, bowed towards Mercy (carefully avoiding bowing towards Moira while he did so). Mercy bowed back awkwardly, not really prepared for it. She went on to check on a very asleep Winston and Genji just decided to leave. He just wanted to get to his room and brood about his life for a bit. Mostly about Moira, because she was really skeeving him off.


	34. Genji Turns to the Dark Side

Genji walked out of the infirmary and slowly made his way back to his room. It was easy to tell that he was in a bad mood because he didn't do any backflips like he usually did when he walked down the halls. 

Reaper slid out of the shadows when Genji passed his hiding place. Shhh don’t tell anyone but Reaper was hiding there ever since Genji and the gang got back from the 2nd dimension 3 days ago.

“You ok?” Reaper asked over his BFF’s shoulder.

Genji didn’t even flinch because he was used to Reaper randomly appearing next to him. He was also too sad to react to anything. 

“I just need to brood,” Genji sighed. 

Reaper ‘oh’ed, and if he could, he would have made the actual :( face. He really hoped Genji would be up for spending time with him. It’d been literal weeks and they hadn’t had a chance to watch the 17th season of Boku no Hero yet. Before anything else could be said, Genji reached his bedroom and Reaper ran back into the shadows but this time he went back to his own room. 

Genji looked back into the hall, and when he saw Reaper wasn’t there, he closed the door. All the lights were off in his room #Energysaving. There was a little light coming from the glow in the dark posters Genji had hanging above his bed. 

Before Genji even thought of turning on the lights, there was a small blue flash in the corner of his room. The blue light expanded and filled his entire room revealing a woman standing in the corner. Genji recognized her as Symmetra the Uber driver. She used to take him places sometimes. 

“What are you doing here?” Genji said, reaching for his katana. 

Symmetra had picked up a manga that was sitting on a desk and stared at it in disgust before turning to Genij. “Let us discuss your failures,” she said. 

“N-Nani?” Genji stuttered. 

Symmetra walked up closer to Genji and repeated herself. She tapped Genji’s forehead like that one ‘Here’s the Motherfucking Tea’ meme. “Let us -*Ting Ting*- discuss -*Ting*- your failures.” She didn’t know she was referencing a meme. She thought she was being sassy. 

Genji rubbed his head like it hurt even though he felt no pain because his face was metal. The thing that did hurt was his heart. The thought of all his failures made him loosen his grip on his katana and his arms fell to his side. 

Symmetra chuckled and continued speaking. “I can offer you an escape from all your troubles. I can give you a family that doesn’t exclude you. I could give you any power you could imagine… but only if you join me.” 

“Join you in what?” Genji asked bitterly. 

“Taking over the 2nd dimension,” she said. After a bit of confused silence from Genji, Symmetra continued, “Tell me, why do you struggle?” 

Genji could actually think of multiple reasons why he was struggling (one of which was NOT because he was being pathetic). Symmetra gave him literally 0.2 seconds to answer before she answered for him. “It’s the Author,” she said, “The Author treating you like garbage for laughs.” 

“Wait, what?” Genji asked. “For a second there I thought you said...”

Symmetra nodded, “The Author. The creator of all things, and of all stories. They are responsible for everything, including your own suffering.”

“With your help, I could write you a better story as the new Author,” Symmetra continued as she held out her mechanical arm. A hologram of a new and improved Genji skin spun around in the palm of her hand. 

“I do not know…” Genji hesitated. After being in the second dimension and also being thrown over a house by one of the guards there, he knew there was some fishy stuff happening with the government. He didn’t want to be a part of that because he was a #goodguy.

“I can also give you rocket feet,” Symmetra hummed.

“Rocket feet, you say?” Genji said, remembering his favorite childhood manga, Astro Boy. 

“Rocket feet indeed,” Symmetra said. She smiled, because she knew that the rocket feet would probably be the thing that sold Genji on the whole 2nd dimension thing.

“Ok,” Genji said, “Sounds reasonable.”

“Really?” Symmetra asked surprised, “Just like that? You don’t even know what being a part of my team entails?”

“You can explain it on the way,” Genji said. “Let’s get going,” he said, jumping through the blueish portal.

“The heck?” Symmetra asked nobody in particular. She felt like this was extremely bad writing, but she couldn’t say it wasn’t actually happening. She stood there for a little bit, then shrugged and followed her new minion into the second dimension.


	35. Boy You Gay

The following couple of days were nothing special. Those coming back from the second dimension recovered from their wounds, Lúcio tinkered with the portal while D.va told him about the new World of Warcraft expansion, and Ana and Doomfist discussed spending all of the Overwatch budget on a ballet hall. 

Reaper waited patiently for Genji to get over his brood sauce. Genji was known for spending days at a time either on a soul searching journies or just in his room watching Fullmetal Alchemist when he got ‘broody’. Reaper himself went about business as usual; he researched antique Kawaii Death Desu merch and tried to buy them off eBay with Moira’s credit card (which she gave him specifically for that purpose). 

But after day three, Reaper got antsy. He walked up to Genji’s room and stared at the door for about 14 hours, expecting his bropathy (telepathy but for bros) to go through the door and alert Genji to his presence. When Genji didn’t open the door, Reaper just decided to shoot the door down, which he did. 

What he found was a completely empty room, and a bunch of feathers for some reason.

 

Winston had a very good nap. He woke up a week after his encounter with the 2nd dimension well rested (something he had never felt in his life), and was in a good mood. That was until Reaper broke down the infirmary doors and started crying at him. 

“G-genji,” Reaper sputtered, “He-he-he’s GONE!”

Winston’s good mood went away (goodbye). “Calm down Reaper,” Winston said, trying to sit up again, and finding it to be easier than before. “Where did he go?” he asked.

“I-I don’t knoooooooow,” Reaper cried while sitting down on Sombra’s bed (by that point the single scratch she had suffered was gone and she had left, so the bed was empty). “I went into his room and found a bunch of bird feathers, but nothing eeeeeeeelse!”

“Dude chill,” Winston said, “I can check the surveillance cameras if it will calm you down.”

Reaper sniffled, “It might.”

Winston rolled his eyes. He got out of bed and found that he could walk. Excellent, he thought, My spinal cord wasn’t severed. And he limped slowly towards the door.

“Follow me,” Winston said. And anticipating a stupid question about where they were going, he added, “We’re going to the surveillance room.”

Reaper, his stupid question diffused, followed Winston in relative silence. 

 

After the clip of Genji going into the portal was finished, Reaper threw a chair into the surveillance equipment. Winston at that point was more annoyed than mad, and just added ‘$30,000 Surveillance Equipment’ to his grocery list. But he was also a little worried; the person Genji had been talking to was definitely Symmetra, and the portal she used looked exactly like the 2nd dimension portal Lúcio had created in Hollywood.

“NO!” Reaper screamed, “HE WOULD NEVER BETRAY US TO AN UBER DRIVER! I’M S H A K I N G!”

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this,” Winston said.

Just then, the door to the surveillance room exploded open (literally (goodbye door #397)). Ana stepped into the room, as menacing and ‘in charge’ as ever. Winston and Reaper saluted her out of fear, even though Ana had never required them to do so. 

“Alright,” Ana said tersely, “What’s the commotion?”

“Genji betrayed us to the dark side!” Winston said, saying it like a 3 year old blaming his older brother for something.

“He did not!” Reaper screamed back, acting like that 3 year old’s older brother trying to deflect the blaming. 

Ana sighed, and asked Winston, “What proof do you have of this?”

Winston pointed behind himself to the surveillance screen with a chair sticking out of it. “Video evidence,” he said.

“Wait I thought you were on my side?” Reaper said.

“I mean… the logical explanation I came up with is that Genji hates most of us and just decided to dip. I don’t really think he can be exonerated,” Winston shrugged. 

“WELL! UM! HECK YOU THEN!” Reaper screamed and then fled from the room.

Winston yelled, “Wait-!” But Ana put a hand on his chest to get him to stop.

“Let him go,” Ana said, “I believe you’re right. He just needs time to accept that. Reaper doesn’t like either of us anyway, we can’t help him. I’ll send Moira and Doomfist to talk to him later.”

“What about Genji?” Winston asked.

Ana sighed again, “We’ll deal with him later.”

Ana’s face grew hard, almost angry. She grabbed Winston by the collar and said, “But I consider it a declaration of war. The 2nd Dimension will fear my wrath, and the wrath of all Overwatch for what it has done!”

 

Ana left Reaper alone for a couple hours, but around exactly 4:20 in the afternoon she sent Moira and Doomfist to help Reaper cope with the betrayal. 

Reaper was crying into his weird body pillow that was oddly devoid of any character, and was just a white pillow with the Jojo logo slapped on it (the logo was on a Post-It® note, in Reaper’s handwriting). Suddenly, when the clock struck 4:20 there was a polite, womanly knock at the door.

“GO AWAY!” Reaper screamed into his body pillow.

“No,” Moira said plainly, “Don’t make Doomfist kill another door. There’s been enough dooricide for one day.”

For a while, there was no response. Moira was about to let Doomfist disintegrate the door before Reaper opened it on his own.

“What do you want?” Reaper asked.

“We’re here to discuss your feelings,” Moira said.

“Or to erase your memories, whichever one you prefer,” Doomfist said casually, as if this was something he could actually do (hint: not at all).

Reaper, simply wanting to be depressed for a while, decided that option number 2 sounded the most desirable. However, he knew that even though Doomfist was powerful, he wasn’t quite that powerful. He let them into his room so that they could talk about his feelings.

Doomfist lugged in a psychiatrist's couch from the hallway; it didn’t fit through the doorway so he had to kill the door anyway. Moira made Reaper lay down on it, and she pulled out a steno notebook so that she looked like an actual psychologist. She and Doomfist sat down on Reaper’s bed, opposite the psychiatrist’s couch. 

“So,” Moira began, “Start your story from the beginning.”

And so Reaper told them both a play by play of his day thus far. He included incredibly unnecessary bits about what he had for breakfast (Wheat Thins in milk), about how he purchased a collector’s KDD item (a steal at 3 trillion dollars), and about how he had been playing DDR before he went to check on Genji. From there, he described the ensuing chaos, up to throwing a chair into the surveillance equipment and storming off.

“... And then I cried for about 5 hours, and now I’m on this couch,” Reaper finished.

“Interesting...” Moira stated. “Tell me,” she continued, “How does Genji’s supposed betrayal make you feel?”

“Genji would never betray us,” Reaper said with certainty, “I’m mad that people would even think that.”

Moira nodded. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I think you’re right.”

“What! I thought you hated him‽“ Reaper scrasked, sitting up in his couch.

Moira was aghast, and she stood up from Reaper’s bed. “Of course not!” she said startled, “He’s your best friend! To hate him would be to hate you! And I could never do that.”

“Then why...” Reaper began to ask.

“I didn’t like how he ran the Anime Club,” Moira began, softer than before, “But I will admit now that I was a little harsh.”

“However,” she said, flopping back down on to Reaper’s bed, “I don’t think that my harassment was enough to get him to turn to the dark side. He’s dealt with much more than my bullying, and yet he remains… er, well, remained.”

Doomfist, during this entire conversation, was doing that weird thing where wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation, yet he heard and processed every word. He felt that it was his time to add his input. 

“I know Genji,” Doomfist said, “I’ve done jobs with him. We’ve robbed banks together, played Mahjong together, we even held off that weird demon we have downstairs together. Bottom line, he wouldn’t betray us like this.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Reaper said, shifting forward on his couch. “We need to investigate this!”  
“You mean… in the 2nd Dimension?” Moira asked.

“Why not!” Reaper screamed, standing up from the couch. “They stole Genji away, that’s enough for me to go #apeshit!”

“But Reaper… did you see how bad Winston was hurt?” Moira asked, “Now as far as I’m able to tell, they say one person is responsible for all that damage; the Black Knight. Now tell me, if one person can do so much damage, then how do you plan on getting through the 2nd Dimension alive‽”

Reaper paused for a second, then he pointed at Doomfist, “We’ll bring him with us. And McCree and Hanzo if we have to. The Anime Club is powerful enough to easily defeat anyone in its path!” He finished that statement sounding hopeful, but deep down he was afraid of the 2nd dimension, especially the Black Knight.

“One problem,” Doomfist stated, “Ana wouldn’t allow it.”

“So what,” Reaper said, immediately regretting his word choice. Ana had eyes everywhere (EVERYWHERE). He regrouped his paranoia and said, “You’re in charge too, right?”

“Oh ya!” Doomfist said. “Almost forgot. I’m in I guess.”

“Great! So when do we leave?” Reaper asked, in a hurry to get going, especially before Ana could catch wind of their scheme and possibly put a stop to it. 

“Soon,” Doomfist said. “After you answer this question...”

“What is it?” Reaper asked.

“Are you gay for Genji?” Doomfist asked. He was hoping that Reaper would say yes and get it out of the way so that Reinhardt would give him money for the bet Ana and himself had made while Reinhardt was asleep in Chapter 25. 

“W-what!” Reaper said, tsundere style. “We’re just best friends!“

“Dude,” Doomfist said, disappointed that Reaper didn’t just play along. He continued, “You wouldn’t face the wrath of Ana if you didn’t love him a little more than as a ‘best friend’.”

“BRUH!” Reaper played ‘bruh sound effect #2’ at full volume on his phone.

Doomfist sighed, “Fine. We leave in 40 minutes.” 

And then they did


	36. One Long Boy

“Aight,” McCree said, tightening his gun belt. He had brought an extra gun and it was making his pants fall down. “Is it time to head out?”

“Yes,” Reaper replied while punching the control panel to the Master Portal. 

“I see,” Hanzo said. 

There were 5 people standing in front of the Master Portal exactly 40 minutes after Chapter 35. Reaper, Moira, Doomfist, McCree, and Hanzo. McHanzo had agreed to join, mostly because of their own agenda, somewhat because they wanted to help.

Eventually, Reaper punched the control panel the right way and the machine started up. Reaper hadn’t put any coordinates in, so the machine basically just threw itself open on a field. Luckily for them, the portal opened on a field not that far away from Strasbourg, mostly because it was going off the last coordinates entered as a base point.

“Alright gang,” Doomfist said. “Destiny awaits us! Time to wage war!” he continued and then dived into the portal head first. 

“Hey wait up!” Reaper said, diving in after him.

Moira grabbed the two remaining boys by the scruff of the neck and yeeted them into the portal before falling backwards into the portal herself like that one Minecraft king from the hit song “Fallen Kingdom.”

 

When they all got out of the blue hurricane that was the Master Portal, they could all hear Doomfist screaming. 

Moira was the first to speak, “Doomfist! What’s wrong‽”

“WHY IS THERE SO MUCH WHEAT‽” Doomfist screamed.

“We are in a field,” Hanzo said.

“Ah,” Doomfist said, instantly placated.

They had arrived in a field outside Strasbourg at about 5 AM. The wheat was menacing in the early morning stillness. It was all wavy and purple; it was definitely hiding something. 

“So this is the 2nd dimension...” McCree started. 

“Sure is!” Reaper said impatiently. “We need to get going!” He continued before trying to disappear edgily into the wheat.

“Hold on,” Moira said, holding her hand up. “We have no idea where we are, or where Genji is. We need more information, and a solid plan before we go forward.”

“But-” Reaper started.

Doomfist A-posed behind Reaper, and without even moving his lips he said, “Foolish boy. Listen to your aunt.”

Reaper, thoroughly creeped out by Doomfist’s sudden telepathic abilities, sat down in the wheat field and thought about how he was a full grown man and how he was still told to listen to his aunt like he was 3. Meanwhile, Moira and Doomfist began talking about a possible plan. They sent Hanzo out to gather more information and made McCree sit with Reaper at the kiddy table. 

Doomfist and Moira discussed their current situation, factoring the time and their locations for any future plan. They were responsible adults and had experience figuring shit out on the fly. 

Meanwhile, McCree and Reaper were just sitting on the ground, Reaper drawing a pentagram with a stick while McCree watched with his knees tucked to his chest. Eventually, Reaper realized he wouldn’t get a text back from Satan even if he tried, and threw the stick into the void that was the rest of the wheat field. He sighed very loudly, like a child bored on a long road trip (really not helping his case). 

McCree was sympathetic to Reaper’s plight, but didn’t really feel the same way the big cloak man did. McCree had plenty to think about. Ashe, for example. The information she had was sensitive, and McCree didn’t know how she could have gotten it. He couldn’t let anyone know he had a dark past; everything at Overwatch would be over for him if that happened!

Reaper saw McCree staring at the pentagram he had drawn, and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“None of your business,” McCree snapped.

“Sorry! Sorry...” Reaper said, “Just wanted to start a conversation is all.”

McCree nodded his head and went back to staring at the pentagram. 

Reaper looked around for a couple more seconds before trying again. “So how bout them taxes-” he said, before being interrupted.

“Somethin’s here,” McCree said, standing up and looking around. 

“H-huh‽” Reaper scrasked, also standing up.

“I said there’s somethin’ here!” McCree said tersely, holding up his gun. “I heard it with my ears I use to hear,” he continued. 

Reaper wondered for a second if McCree had ears he used for something other than hearing, and put the question out of his head. “Where is it?” he asked quietly. 

McCree looked around for a second and saw it. “Over there,” McCree said, pointing deeper into the wheat field. Sure enough, McCree’s vision was correct. In the field, in the direction he pointed, there was a pair of red glowing eyes. 

“Go get Moira,” McCree said calmly.

Reaper agreed and went to go get both of the big bads. In the meantime, McCree stared down the red eyed creature. In the early morning light it, was difficult to even get the outline of the thing, but nothing with red eyes could be good.

“What do you want, big boy?” McCree asked, radiating nonchalance, still holding his gun. The creature continued staring at McCree in the dark growth it had lodged itself. McCree started to take a step forward to it before Moira came running over.

“What seems to be the problem‽” she yelled Irishly, and that was all it took. The red-eyed beast pounced. It soared over McCree at a speed even he was unable to rival. His gun hand was much too slow for the creature and it was over Moira in a mere blink of an eye. It collapsed over Moira and she started screaming. 

McCree probably would have killed the dog if his eyes weren’t so quick. He was able to see that Moira was fine, even in the darkness of the dawn. He could see that the red-eyed creature was just a very large Doberman, and a friendly looking one at that. It was licking Moira’s face, and the screaming had transformed into little giggles of glee. 

“Moira‽” Doomfist yelled, coming over from where he was, “What is it!”

“It’s a dog!” McCree exclaimed, putting away his gun. “A cute little puppy! Lil’ pup!” McCree yelled giddily. If anything, McCree could appreciate a good dog when he saw one. 

“He-he’s- Oh stop it- he’s very friendly,” Moira said, trying to get the dog to stop licking her face.

“Obviously,” Doomfist said, hunkering to look at the dog. “Hey there doggy,” he continued, speaking directly to pup. The dog stopped licking Moira and looked up at him. It smiled and went in to lick him as well. Doomfist took a step back; he knew that if the dog touched him it would surely disintegrate, and he didn’t want such a terrible thing to happen to such a nice dog. But it was too late, the dog licked him in the face. 

“Gasp noise!” Doomfist said, taking a few steps back. He watched in horror at the smiling happy doggo, waiting for it to dust itself, Thanos style. But the dog’s atoms remained intact. 

“Omg!” Doomfist yelled, “What a boy! He didn’t disintegrate!”

“Huh?” Reaper asked, “Oh right… I forgot that you could do that. How’s the dog still alive?”

“I don’t know...” Doomfist said. ”Only the strong and the sexy can resist my power!”

The dog went back to licking Moira’s face. It was just as happy slappy as before. “P-please stop it,” Moira said to the dog, not really meaning it. She had always liked dogs; they were the one species she refused to genetically fuck up.

Eventually, her face was wet enough to cause discomfort. She started to get up, and get away from the dog’s lickingtons. Surprisingly, as soon as she pulled away the dog pulled away too, and sat down politely, smiling at them all. 

“So there’s dogs in the 2nd Dimension,” Reaper said. “Great!” he continued, “Can we get back on track now?”

“Soon...” Moira said, wiping spit off her face. “This may be significant.”

“How‽“ Reaper scrasked. 

Moira shook her head. Reaper wasn’t an epic JRPG player like she was, he didn’t understand strategy. However, she conceded that he also probably didn’t have all the information. She decided to clue him in. 

“You know the Black Knight, right?” Moira asked

“The one who defeated our boys?” Reaper asked, kind of knowing what she was talking about. He had already forgotten that he was deathly afraid of the Black Knight just last chapter. 

“Yes. The reason they lost is because she had an army of cats,” Moira said, trying to get Reaper to understand.

“Uh huh?” Reaper asked.

“So wouldn’t it be beneficial for us to have a dog to help us against the army of cats?” Moira asked.

“No? One dog won’t be able to fend off a whole army of cats?” Reaper stated like people on Tumblr state things (haha the funny put question marks after a clear statement like a fucking idiot).

“This dog isn’t just ‘one dog’,” Doomfist interjected, “It resisted my trademark ‘Top Energy.’ Buildings have disintegrated for less physical contact than that dog gave me!”

“And it was fast as all hell!” McCree yelled. “It could even outrun my own desire for murder!” McCree said, joking (slightly).

“Ok, ok,” Reaper said, “But how does this help us rescue Genji? We don’t even know if we’re going to see the Black Knight.”

“On the contrary,” Hanzo said, suddenly appearing directly behind Reaper, and speaking around his shoulder. “I would say that we are quite likely to meet the Black Knight, seeing as we teleported into a field right across the street from Strasbourg.”

“Wha-” Reaper said, but then looked up beyond the wheat. He could see the tops of some buildings (how had he not seen them before? The top of the wheat was only like 4 feet. What a loser).

“I talked to a few people in town,” Hanzo said, lying. He hadn’t spoken to anyone, more just listened to gossip in the street because he was too awkward to actually talk with anyone. Luckily the people of Strasbourg had started speaking English instead of French or German as it was easier for the Authors to write English gossip than French gossip. Hanzo continued, “There are some significant events going on.”

“How did you know about all this Black Knight garbage if I only found out about it like 10 minutes ago?” Reaper asked.

“You are not the only one with friends,” Hanzo said, thinking of the tea party (metaphorical and otherwise) he had with Sombra as soon as she was released from the infirmary. 

“E!” Reaper said.

Meanwhile, Moira was looking at the dog. She had looked for a collar, but there was none. She patted it on the neck and it smiled at her. She smiled back. 

“That decides it,” she said, standing up, “I’m keeping this dog.”

“Congratulations,” Doomfist said epically. 

Moira turned to the dog, and like the Queen knighting someone, Moira said, “I dub thee Yusuke Kitagawa, after the best boy from Persona 5.”

“Welcome to the team, Long Boy!” McCree and Hanzo said excitedly, putting their arms around each other’s shoulders.

There was an epic freeze frame that everyone but Reaper took part in. He kind of just looked around waiting for them all to become unfrozen. Eventually, three (5) minutes later, they did. 

“Alright,” Moira said, not missing a stride, “I think I have a plan....” And then the chapter ended


	37. Spaghetti Western

In ancient times, the city of Strasbourg was a stronghold for the Romans along the Rhine river. After the time of the Romans, it remained a fairly significant city, being absorbed by the Holy Roman Empire before eventually achieving its independence as a free city-state. Even in the 2nd Dimension, whose history is quite different from the history of the 1st Dimension, Strasbourg managed to keep its importance as a military outpost.

This was true even in the times of the Symmetrical Empire (Symmetra’s Empire); she wouldn’t have sent one of her top generals there if it wasn’t important. Along with being militarily important, the history of Strasbourg led to the city being the prime digging site for relics; relics being an integral part of Symmetra’s plans. 

Although that history may be interesting and varied, in both dimensions, it doesn’t matter at all for our story. Here is how Moira’s plan played out: 

It was an hour after sunrise when it began. It had taken them a while to get the whole plan in place. Doomfist was sent to the East side of the Rhine river. He wanted to do a magician’s act and entrance the soldiers there with the wonders of pigeons coming out of hats. However, that wouldn't have worked even if he tried. Instead, Moira had him try and start a revolution (something he was actually pretty good at) to draw attention away from the West side of the Rhine, where the Black Knight was almost surely at. 

Doomfist did his job well, and by High Noon™ the only Symmetran soldiers left on the West side of the Rhine were two unfortunate soldiers locked in the hold, and the Black Knight. Because she had dispatched her entire force to try and quell the uprising on the East bank (which she thought of as out of her league), Brigitte decided to patrol the streets of Strasbourg herself. She had always liked doing the normal soldier thing, despite her superiority to the normal foot soldier. She thought it set a good example. That’s why she had gone along with the two unfortunate soldiers now in prison; to set a good example. However, patrolling all by herself would turn out to be a mistake. 

At High Noon™, someone appeared on the empty street she was patrolling. The someone had a broad cowboy hat on low on their face, covering it. On their hip were two futuristic six shooters strapped to a gun belt. The person walked with a confident gait. There was a puff of smoke coming from the person’s mouth. 

Brigitte was already annoyed, and the 👁️ (sight) of this cocky soul only made her more frustrated.

“Stop,” Brigitte said in her most commanding voice.

The cowboy stopped moving towards her. They were 15 paces away from each other. The cowman proverb took a draw from their cigarette and threw it to the ground. The cowboy put out the smoke with the heel of their cowboy boot. They did it in a slow and aggravating way.

Brigitte growled with her visor fully on. “State your name, cowboy,” she demanded.

The cowboy looked up, revealing that it wasn’t a cowboy after all, but instead a ginger 40 year old woman. “The name’s Moira,” Moira said in as much of a McCree voice as she could manage. 

Inside her visor, Brigitte scrunched up her nose. “You have a contraband item,” she said, pointing at the gun on her hip. “I’m going to have to ‘arrest’ you for that,” she said, smirking evilly beneath her mask.

Moira ignored her, “So you’re the Black Knight?”

Brigitte was caught off guard by Moira’s disobedience. If anything, being a general in Symmetra's army had the perk of people actually listening to you. However her surprise lasted only a moment, and she regained her composure. “Indeed. If you know who I am you must have serious confidence to come up to me like this.”

Moira shifted feet to attack stance. “I’m no more scared of you than I am of my own shadow!” she jeered. 

Behind her visor Brig’s face grew furious. “You’ll die for that!” She screamed as she flung her flail. She hadn’t felt anything on the other end of the flail that sounded like meat, but she also didn’t see the offending cowpoke moments later. Moira had seemed to… disappear! In her place was a faint puff of soot. 

“Hmm,” someone said from behind Brigitte. When she turned around, she saw Moira fingering her wrist, as if looking for a pulse. “I don’t seem to be dead. Care to try again?” Moira asked sarcastically. 

Brigitte, now more annoyed than ever, threw her flail in Moira’s direction, then projected it behind her when the puff of soot appeared. Again, no meaty crunch could be felt.

“Yoo hoo,” Cowgirl Moira said from a windowsill above Brig’s head. “I’m up here now,” she said.

Before Moira had even begun to stop speaking, Brig had thrown her flail to the windowsill, completely destroying the little deck garden that had been there. Brig looked around for a moment, panting slightly, hoping to spot the interloper’s corpse. She saw nothing, until 3 seconds later there came a tap on her shoulder. 

“Right behind you,” Moira whispered gleefully.

Brigitte tried to punch the place Moira was, but to no avail; Moira was gone again. “YOU WILL BECOME THE DIRT I WALK ON, YOU MANIACAL WITCH!” Brig screamed. “Face me as equals! No tricks!”

Suddenly, Moira appeared in an alleyway. “No,” Moira said, lighting another cigarette, “I don’t think I will.”

Then Brigitte cracked her neck, threw her flail to the ground and said, “Fine. Then you won’t mind if I make a few concessions of my own….” Brigitte grabbed the can of cat food she had on her constantly, opened it loudly enough for the entire city to hear it, and threw it to the ground. 

Everything was going to plan.


	38. Long Boy vs The Legion

The cats didn’t become a wave immediately, but it didn’t take them long. They were always close to their mistress, to begin with, and were at her beck and call at every moment. Moira and Brigitte stood staring at each other for a good 20 seconds before the rumbling of thousands of cats could be heard.

They came from the street directly behind their mistress. They looked like an actual wave, like liquid; like the blood wave from the Shining movie, I think. They were moving as quickly as a literal wave of thousands of cats could move; which was quite fast. 

Brigitte held up her arm as her Legion came close to her, and they slowed to a stop behind her. Brigitte was overall more surprised than mad that Moira didn’t seem surprised by her army at all. In most cases, five thousand cats made people uncomfortable. However, Moira just stood there, as flippant as ever. 

Surprise turned to fear when Brigitte realized that summoning the army this early was a risky maneuver. The witch lady Moira could have some weapon that could hurt her babies; she obviously had the magic to teleport around. Brigitte was about to call them all off before Moira began to speak. 

“Impressive,” Moira said, seeming not at all impressed. “How many?”

“Like I’d tell you,” Brigitte said, trying not to wear the fear she felt on her face. 

“I’d say that I’m afraid, but I’m really not,” Moira said pushing away from the alleyway wall she was leaning against. 

“I think you should be scared,” Brigitte said, now less afraid. People who said they weren’t afraid were usually bluffing; she had seen thousands of cases like this one. 

They were now facing each other, standoff style. The blazing high noon sun flew high above them, casting the normally purple tinted landscape of the 2nd Dimension in a light blue hue. They stood silently at each other, waiting for one to crack, until Moira winked craftily at Brigitte.

That wink upset Brigitte. “Then I shall see you in Hell,” Brigitte said, putting her hand forward, signaling her Legion to move. Brigitte’s Legion moved on her command, carefully giving Brig 3 feet of comfort space. The Legion moved forward, building up speed until it was at its previous wave-like pace. 

Just as the Legion was mere meters away from her, Moira yelled, “Yusuke! Come here, boy!”

Yusuke (or as the rest of the team called him, Long Boy) appeared. And that is the correct word. He seemed to come from nowhere and arrive at Moira’s side, as if he used the same magic Moira used to move; which really wasn’t the case. Yusuke was just inhumanly fast. In fact, he was the fastest noun in the 2nd Dimension. 

Yusuke looked at the wave of cats about to crash down on his mistress and himself, and jumped in. Moira took that as her chance to disappear away, back into the alley. She appeared there just in time to see the Legion blur past, not even giving the alley a second glance. After the entire wave of cats had passed, as well as their mistress, she inched closer to the mouth of the road. 

There was a dome of cats formed around the place they had come to rest, some 10 meters from the alley. Brigitte stood at its edge.

“What’s going on?” She asked her cats, as if they could speak (which in fact they could).

There were a couple of moments of (apparent) silence before she responded, “How is that dog still alive!”

Just as she said that, the dome began to disgorge on the side Brigitte was on in a place directly above her head. Seconds later, Yusuke dove majestically out of the dome to land behind Brig, just as Moira stepped out to meet him. The dog had been under 5000 cats for about 30 seconds, in the vortex that originally vexed some of Overwatch’s best agents… and he came out smiling!

Moira took that moment of surprise to pat Yusuke on the head. “Good boy,” she said appreciatively.

“How’d you-” Brigitte began to ask, flabbergasted.

“I have one hell of a dog.” Moira said. Then, she pointed at the army of cats and said to Yusuke, “Sic em’!”

Yusuke, not one to disobey the call of his mistress, did exactly that. The Legion, knowing this time what the Long Boy was capable of (at least 13 of their rank were now being treated by cat medics (none had died because that would be animal cruelty and not very Pg-13)), tried to run. Yusuke was faster. He dove back into the mass of cats as the mass tried running away from him, creating a kind of moving dome effect. The cats continued running with Yusuke at their center, until they were practically out of sight, but they could still be heard; their cat yowls and mewls could be heard across the city. 

Brigitte meanwhile just stood there looking very confused. 

“Oh do try to keep up,” Moira said, moving past Brig without her original cowboy attire on. “Can you boys handle her? I have to catch up with my dog,” Moria asked people who had suddenly arrived behind Brigitte. When Brigitte turned, she saw three men, one of which was putting on the cowboy attire that Moira had just taken off.

The cowboy, now fully cowboyed, said, “No problem’.” He lit a cigarette and smirked. Everything was going to plan.


	39. Battle of the Bands

McCree was all ready to pull out his guns and start blasting the Black Knight away, however Moira had failed to give McCree back his guns.

“Oops!” McCree said, a flail now coming towards his face. While the whip was rocket powered, it wasn’t quite fast enough to hit McCree (god of being just quick enough to be useful to the plot (his actual title)). The flail sailed over his head and he rolled away. “Moira!” McCree yelled after the fast receding body of Moira O’Deorain, “You forgot my- oh whatever.” He got up.

Brigitte, who at this point was fed up with cowboys she’d never met dodging her flail, didn’t project the flail straight to the place McCree would be. She instead hit the man in the black cloak. Reaper was so surprised by the speed and the precision of the flail that he wasn’t able to enable his ‘Uh oh, no touchy!’ magic. He flew across the street and landed hard on a wall, instantly knocking him out.

“O o p s!” McCree said, making finger guns because his brain said that he should have guns but he didn’t so it was the best he could do. 

“Now,” Brigitte said, cracking her neck, “Could I ask, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE‽” 

Hanzo drew his bow, and yelled, “None of your business!”

Brigitte took a second, but finally, she realized. “Overwatch… I should have known.” She retracted her flail and stood ready for the bowman and the cowboy. However, she continued, “Only Overwatch would be so powerful, and yet so foolish!”

“You know it, honey,” McCree said, pointing his pew pew finger guns at Brig. He knew he was a dumbass, but hell if he wasn’t good at his job despite that.

“Stand down!” Hanzo said, “You have no reason to continue!”

“Heh,” Brigitte said, lifting her visor. Her eyes were fireballs of hate, almost as bright as Ana’s eyes whenever somebody ate all of her Werther’s Originals. “You have no idea,” Brigitte said, and she threw her flail again. 

This time, like most of the other times, the flail failed to hit anything. McCree dodged it adeptly while Hanzo leapt away from it just in time for it not to crush his fragile ribcage (which was actually the strongest set of bones in his body). 

Hanzo, unlike his husband, actually had a weapon to use. He pressed a wooden button on the edge of his grip, and his bow erupted in blue light; the draconic power of the Shimada clan. The light wrapped itself around Hanzo’s bow and his arrows became holographic. Hanzo let out a high C pitched wail and let go of the string. 

Instantly after he let go, six holographic arrows were sent in Brigitte’s direction. However unfortunately for Hanzo, Brigitte had responded to the wail by turtling up behind her equally holographic shield. All six arrows lodged themselves visibly into the hard light shield, but none broke the shield entirely.

“Woah,” McCree said in awe. “How long’ve you been able to do that‽”

Hanzo, equally annoyed that his husband hadn’t noticed the spirit arrows before, and enamored that his husband thought they were cool, said, “I have had them for about a year now.”

“I thought you had that ‘trigonometry’ thing?” McCree asked. 

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Hanzo said, who knew exactly what McCree was talking about. Hanzo didn’t want to talk about the scatter arrows. 

Brigitte was about to put down her shield and start swinging again, but Hanzo summoned the holo-arrows yet again. When’s he going to run out of those arrows? she thought, while trying to dodge as many as she could to avoid having one of them randomly breaking her shield. The answer was never, she realized. As long as the bowman was alive, the hard light he was creating would likely just keep coming. She decided to switch to a different mode of attack; namely, she decided to attack. Brigitte decided to put the Trevor Belmont style flail movement behind her, and decided to revert back to good old swinging. It was how she originally learned how to use the flail, so why wouldn’t it work now?

Brigitte put down her shield as soon as Hanzo had finished his last round of hologram arrows. She rushed forward, catching both men off guard. Her flail traveled close to the ground, and McCree was able to jump over it easily. However, it caught Hanzo on his weird metal chicken legs and swept him onto the ground. He fell to the ground in slow motion, but by the time McCree had actually finished jumping, it was too late, even with his considerable speed. Hanzo’s head hit the ground hard, and he too passed out. 

Brigitte stopped swinging her flail and retracted it. Now it was just her and the man with the finger guns. He was fast, sure, but she would catch him slipping up sooner or later. Best he could do was run, she felt. He had no way to stand against her, and she had the engineering marvels of the Symmetrical Empire on her side. 

“Well now,” She said, “You’re all that’s left, then?”

“You hurt my husband,” McCree said in a low voice. He wasn’t fully sure that Hanzo was still alive (his bones were famously fragile), but it was best to stay hopeful. 

“Yes, and what happened to him will soon happen to you,” Brigitte said.

McCree said nothing, but he let his fingers loosen up. No more finger guns; things were serious. Brigitte decided that this was nothing more than a show of confidence meant to weaken her resolve; it did weaken her resolve. She was hesitant in attacking the cowboy for the same reason she was afraid that Moira had something up her sleeve. However, like last time, she decided that her gut feeling didn’t mean anything, and that a disarmed man with a cowboy hat on shouldn’t scare her. 

She swung her flail. The flail connected with McCree’s face, however even as the rocket flail seems to scrape across his face, McCree’s noggin didn’t move at all. As if… McCree was a hologram too! Except that’s not what it was. He was moving so incredibly fast that when he dodged the flail and went back into place it was imperceptible.

McCree’s eye glowed red under his hat. “Yare yare daze,” he said.

“W-wha-” Brig tried to say, but before she could finish, everything went white.


	40. Doomfist Becomes a God

“Yusuke!” Moira yelled, “Shark Spin maneuver!” 

Moira, Yusuke, and the Legion were now in a large plaza. Moira was outside of the large dome the Legion had made around Yusuke once again. The cats had decided, much like their master, that they weren’t going to let one unarmed dog stick it to them. They were plentiful; they were Legion. They couldn’t lose so easily to a dog and a ginger. 

All the same, the dog and the ginger were holding their own; and Shark Spin maneuver was the last straw. Yusuke just laid down like a shark on land and flopped about, but with how fast and strong he was, it was enough. The dome that was the Legion disgorged, disgusted and defeated by the Long Boy. 

Many thousands of cats dispersed through the streets of Strasbourg. They tried to scratch at Moira as they passed, but were overall just too tired from trying to keep up the mass of the Legion that the swipes just ended up being gentle pats. At the center of the plaza stood a panting, yet still smiling, doggo. 

Yusuke hadn’t sustained much damage during the fight, just a small scratch on his snooter; nothing that wouldn’t heal in time. Moira was in mother mode so she started to spray her healing juice, only realizing three seconds into it that it wouldn’t work. Wounds didn’t heal the same from the 2nd Dimension. But the wound actually did close faster, much to Moira’s surprise.

“That’s weird,” she said. She shrugged and started petting her dog and saying “who’sagoodboyyou’reagoodboyyesyouare,” over and over again. She continued petting him as cat yowls could be heard in the distance. Weirdly, there were no people to see her doing this; they were all over on the East of the Rhine to see some fireball revolutionary that was supposed to be there. After a few minutes of petting, Yusuke pulled away and ran off, quick as a fiddle, in the direction of the boys. 

“Oh right,” Moira said, remembering her duty as a healer.

She got there a minute or so after Yusuke. She found the dog licking at Hanzo’s face, which was all bruised up. McCree was hunkered over Hanzo, and Reaper was watching from a few paces away, holding his neck as if it pained him. The Black Knight was slumped against a wall a few paces behind Reaper, not dead, but extremely unconscious. Her helmet was taken off, and an improvisational restraint of rope tied her hands behind her back.

Moira bent down to examine Hanzo, who was also extremely unconscious. “Oh boys,” Moira began, “What kind of trouble is this?”

McCree spoke low, “He got hit by the Black Knight’s flail.” He continued sitting there for a second, then asked, “Is he going to make it?”

“Oh almost certainly,” Moira said. She sprayed him with heal sauce, and sure enough, his face lost its damage. Hanzo laid there, now regaining consciousness. 

As McCree and Reaper gave relieved yells of celebration, Moira muttered, “Now, why didn’t that work with the rest of them?”, referencing that one time when Winston almost fucking died lmao. She thought for a second and said, “Oh it’s probably nothing important.” And in fact, it wasn’t. The fact that Winston and his gang didn’t heal that well was mostly just due to going through the portal. It screwed with garbage. So long as nobody went through the portal to get healing, the juices that Moira, Mercy, and Ana used to heal would work for their intended purpose.

“How did I do?” Hanzo asked McCree.

McCree smiled and said, “You did great, pumpkin’.”

Moira stood apart from the happy couple and the edge-man, satisfied that her plan had worked. There was only one thing missing; Doomfist. He was supposed to meet them here after he finished up on the East, however, he was slightly late. As they would later find out, Doomfist had gone from fireball revolutionary to a worshipped demigod in a matter of minutes, and his cult was now in a heated battle with the Symmetrical forces sent to quell their revolt. Doomfist himself was doing little more than radiating menace at the soldiers, who were beginning to bow before him.

While that was happening across the river, Moira walked over to the shallow breathing knight slumped on the wall. The Black Knight was young, to Moira’s surprise. Only about 23 at a glance. She was too young to be as powerful as she obviously was. Moira went to move the flail away from the girl, and found it to be quite light despite being made of very hard metal. 

Moira looked at the girl again, threw the flail to the ground beside her, and said, “Shame, really.” She moved away from the sleeping form of the Black Knight, and waited with the Anime Club for Doomfist’s return. 

 

Doomfist arrived seated on a throne being carried by the people of Strasbourg. They were chanting something in French, despite obviously knowing English (see Ch 36). They marched forward, a few soldiers in their midst. When the throng reached Moira and her gang gang, Doomfist raised his large hand to signal the procession stop. Doomfist ‘rising uppercutted,’ out of his throne and landed in front of Moira.

“What’s up gamers,” he said.

Moira looked behind Doomfist at the mass of people. “Did you start another cult?” She asked.

“Yep!” Doomfist said, smiling and nodding his head. He then turned around and yelled, “Ok guys! You can go home now!”

And so they did, taking the throne with them. They grumbled amongst themselves about their new God and about how much of a hassle it was that they had to switch religions once every couple months. Moira, Doomfist, and the remaining fellows, were left alone on the street. 

“How’d it go?” Doomfist asked, nonchalantly for a man who was now worshipped in the same role as Jesus Christ or Elvis.

Moira pointed to the slumped figure of the Black Knight and said, “See for yourself, ‘Your Holyness’.”

Doomfist looked over the girl. “Dang,” he muttered, “That must’ve been epic.”

“It was,” McCree said, remembering the funny Jojo reference he had made (despite not understanding what the words he said actually meant). McCree turned to Moira and asked, “Can I have my guns back now?” Moira quickly handed McCree the guns, not really wanting them anymore. It was cool and epic when she had the cowboy hat on, but now they were just murder tools. 

They stood/sat there in the street for a couple of minutes, not really saying anything. The town around them seemed to get back into its original groove; women were throwing around laundry, merchants were yelling about tomatoes, and soldiers went back on patrol (albeit now under the command of their Lord and Savoir Doomfist).

Doomfist sighed and asked, “So what now?”

“Lol idk,” Moira shrugged. 

Suddenly a being emerged from the alley that Moira had used. The being was tall, had a bow, and was wearing the Huntress skin.

“Moira? Doomfist?” Asked the Marquis de Strasbourg, also known as Widowmaker. “Is it really you?” She continued.


	41. The Marquis Revealed

While Doomfist was creating yet another cult on the East of the Rhine, and Moira was battling the Black Knight on the West, Widowmaker was gathering information. That was what she was sent into her birth city to do, and that’s what she did. She broke into the Strasbourg Symmetrical HQ when the commotion with Doomfist began and the area was left vacated to try and find information on the digging operation that was supposedly taking place there. The technology there confused and frustrated her, but she was able to find hard copies of the information she was sent to find. She stuffed them in her knapsack and got out of there as quickly as she could go. As she was running out of the city, she almost ran into a mob carrying a man she thought was dead.

Now that man, and yet others she also thought were dead, stood before her. They had all died 3 years ago… at Gibraltar. 

“How is this possible...” Widowmaker asked with an ellipses. She didn’t expect an answer. None was given. 

Moira and Reaper stared wide eyed at Widowmaker, who had so tragically died in Chapter 24: Photosynthesis is a Weapon. Doomfist didn’t look surprised; if Junkrat was able to come back from the dead, so could Widowmaker. 

Widowmaker, on the other hand, looked very surprised, almost too surprised. She hadn’t displayed this much emotion in her entire employment with Talon. And yet here she was, displaying emotion.

“Widowmaker!” Reaper gasped loudly, “You’re alive! How did you survive Winston?”

“Winston?” Widowmaker asked, still in awe, but now slightly confused, “Who is he?”

“Giant gorilla,” McCree said, contributing. “You’d remember him if you knew him. He killed you.”

The Marquis de Strasbrourg shook her head. “The real question is how did you all survive‽” Widowmaker scrasked.

“By being epic,” Doomfist said. “Where have you been, girl?”

“Me?” Widowmaker pointed at herself, not quite sure this exchange was actually taking place. “I-I’ve been with the Resistance since Righteous Talon was eliminated… I thought that would be where you would have wanted me.”

Doomfist nodded, satisfied with the answer despite how nonsensical it was to him.

“Wait,” Reaper said, “Why do you look so weird?” He had never seen Widowmaker dress so archaically. 

“I-I could ask the same,” Widowmaker said. 

Everyone was silent then for a while. While Widowmaker and the Talon boys were reconvening, Hanzo and McCree were whispering to each other. 

“They told me you were dead,” Moira said, mystified. 

“I wasn’t the one who died!” Widowmaker said, now becoming visibly distressed. “You three were the ones who died,” she said, looking at the former Talon crew. She pointed at Doomfist and said, “I saw you die with my own eyes!”

“If I may interject,” Hanzo said. It was the first time in his life where he had interrupted a conversation (he was a polite boy (generally)); but what he was going to say needed to be said. The entire group stared at him, and he had to call back to a couple moments ago when McCree gave him the American made “Interrupt Word Pass™.”

Hanzo cleared his throat. “I think I may know how to resolve this confusion,” he said. “Sombra-” Hanzo began, but was interrupted himself.

“Sombra‽” Widowmaker asked, “She’s alive too? Where is she?”

“Yes,” Hanzo said, “She’s alive. And where she is actually has to do with what I was going to say earlier...”

“See, Sombra told me,” Hanzo contemplated, “That she thought that there was 2nd Dimensional copy of Widowmaker, based off the journal she found. Meaning that there are 2nd Dimensional copies of us too.” 

Widowmaker was silent. A lot was being processed at once. She tried to think back on the story Master Tama had told her about his old home, a place he called the 1st Dimension, but she couldn’t. The thought of a single face kept blocking her thoughts….

“So,” Reaper said, “This isn’t ‘our’ Widowmaker?”

Hanzo said, “I do not think so,” and shrugged. 

Widowmaker’s thoughtful face turned cold, the thing Hanzo said finally cutting through her muddled mind. “No,” She said, “I’m not ‘your’ Widowmaker. And you’re not ‘my’ Talon. ‘My’ Talon died.”

“Unfortunate,” Doomfist said.

“So where are our copies?” McCree asked, referring to the people who weren’t Widowmaker’s Talon.

“Who are you?” Widowmaker asked.

“I’m McCree,” McCree said. He pointed beside himself and said, “And this is Hanzo. I swear, you should know us from Overwatch. Talon and Overwatch have been buddies for years.”

At that, Widowmaker began to laugh. Actually, laugh. None of them had ever heard her do that. It was actually quite pleasant. “Now that’s a good joke,” she said. “No upstanding gentleman such as yourself would ever be in Overwatch. And besides, they died along with Talon. It was the only good thing to happen that day....” On that final note, she went sour and began to look at the ground.

“Uh,” Doomfist said, “Hate to be a downer, but uhhhhhhhhh-”

“We’re in Overwatch now,” Moira said. “Have been for two years.” And in a stroke of genius she often got, she added, “I suppose the 2nd Dimensional Overwatch must’ve been quite different from the one we’re in.” 

Widowmaker was surprised, but because of Moira’s final remark, the surprise failed to turn into revulsion. She had now internalized the story she had heard from Tama, now respecting it as true. At the time she thought it was just a silly story to help her along, but faced with the evidence in front of her, she had to change her thinking.

“Overwatch...” Widowmaker said, and shuddered. She remembered the years and years of tyranny that Overwatch had placed over the entire world. 2nd Dimensional Overwatch wasn’t as powerful as 1st Dimension Overwatch, but what it lacked in power it made up in evil. It was almost a relief when Symmetra killed them all; almost. Now the tyranny was under new management, and Widowmaker continued fighting that tyranny. 

Widowmaker looked pensive, so nobody spoke for a bit. Eventually, Widowmaker said, “This changes things. With all of you by my side I might just be able to beat the Black Knight and take back my city; if you’d help me of course...”

McCree and Hanzo stepped away from each other, revealing the sleeping girl behind them. Widowmaker didn’t understand at first but then she did. 

“You already did it‽” Widowmaker scrasked. “You’ve subdued the Black Knight, the person presiding over the conquering of all of Europe, all by yourself‽”

“Yep!” McCree said smiling. 

“Well this definitely changes things,” Widowmaker said, putting on a little smile and looking at the former Talon members hopefully. The former Talon members smiled right back.


	42. Orientation Day

Meanwhile, in a giant floating tower somewhere in Egypt, Symmetra (A.K.A the God Empress of the Symmetrical Empire, the Former Champion of the Uber Fantasy Football League, was showing her new recruit around. Thus far in the tour, Genji had been wraptly listening to all that Symmetra had to say, and wasn’t speaking that much. Symmetra immediately took a liking to Genji. He was just the right candidate for general-ship. Sym was so glad she didn’t end up going with the cowboy Ashe had suggested. 

Symmetra and Genji walked alone through a hallway about halfway up the tower. Like most of the 2nd Dimension, the hallway was colored purple, and had several dozens of closed doors on either side. The ceiling was vaulted, and the arches that held up the ceiling in between the doors were expertly sculpted with complex Norse runes. Above each door was a soft blue light, some blinking on and off. The lights kind of made the doors look like the Monster’s Inc doors. And so did the metal brackets each door was embraced by. They were the Monster’s Inc doors, after all. At the end of the empty Monster’s Inc hallway was an elevator which Symmetra and Genji got in to.

Symmetra had been silent throughout the trek through the hallway, and she remained silent in the elevator. Genji reciprocated the silence. Symmetra was trying to decide what to say about Genji to her generals. She couldn’t actually think of anything so she just waited in the elevator in silence. Unfortunately for her, the elevator was longer than she remembered. The silence caused by the moving elevator was just long enough to become awkward, however when she decided to speak to ease that awkwardness, the elevator doors opened onto the top of the tower; the most powerful section.

The elevator doors opened into another long hallway, this time going the opposite direction of the previous long hallway. The hallway looked exactly like the Teen Titan’s living room (but not the Teen Titans Go Living Room, that one is against the law), except for there was a very large throne at the end of the room, facing towards a giant pane of glass. Otherwise, things were the same as the Teen Titan’s living room; weird kitchen/dining room/ lounge area included. 

Most of Symmetra’s Generals were there that day, seeing as most had just come back from large campaigns. They would report to her about those later. Most of them had ended in success, except for Soldier 706’s campaign, which ended in disaster. However, that was what Symmetra had expected from him. Sym had put the twins on his job after she ordered him back and they were doing an excellent job subjecting Siberia.

At that very moment, Soldier 706 was sitting in the lounge area watching reruns of Seinfeld and getting Rice Krispies® all over the floor. When he saw his boss and a barely recognizable shape in the elevator doorway, he got up as quick as he could, cleaned up the Rice Krispies® off the ground and threw the HTV in the trash can. And as quick as he could was actually very quick. The mess was cleaned up within a blink of an eye. Soldier 706 could rival McCree in speed, mostly because the stuff Symmetra had pumped into him (nanobots, genetic mods, etc) made him a speedman (like half the cast of this *fucking* fanfiction).

Soldier 706 stood at attention, saluting Symmetra in the fashion he always had. Symmetra flung her hand at him to signal he stop, and so he did. 

“Go get everybody,” Symmetra said disdainfully. Soldier 706 did so without saying a word, and exactly 3.62 seconds later, most of Symmetra’s Generals stood before her and her newest addition. 

“Good morning, everyone,” Symmetra said, despite it being mid-afternoon. She said this as a jab at Ashe, who it was obvious Soldier 706 had just drug out of bed. She had on baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt that said, “Don’t Even Talk to Me Until I’ve Had My Morning Coffee.” Ashe had her hat on as well (she always had, always did, always would), but under the hat was a rat’s nest of albino hair.

Symmetra moved past her jaded semi-insult in a matter of moments, and continued. “I’d like to introduce all of you to our newest recruit,” she pointed at Genji. And like a person talking about a vintage action figure, she added, “His name is Genji and he’s a cyborg ninja from Overwatch.”

All the Generals in attendance (and there were only about 4, including B.O.B., who was surprisingly a General of the Symmetrical Military) mumbled and politely clapped their acceptance of this new individual. All but a strange monolith of a woman Genji would later know to be Zarya, the former WWE wrestler and Dairy Queen employee. Zarya didn’t make noise. It wasn’t her style. 

Genji bowed and made his konichiwa’s. He tried to shake hands with everyone, but only Soldier 706 was up to it. Soldier shook Genji’s hand mercilessly, and with military firmness. “Glad to see you made it over here, Genji,” Soldier said, as if he had met Genji before. “I always thought you’d make a good General,” he continued.

Genji, internally cringing at the strength of Soldier’s handshake (let me remind you Genji’s hands are made of METAL), asked, “Ya, it is cool; do I know you?”

Soldier’s handshake stopped then, and he let go. With a somber frown, Soldier said, “Oh right… you wouldn’t know me. I used to be invisible over there...”

Genji, feeling bad for not knowing who this man was even a little bit, asked, “So what is your name?”

“Just call me Soldier 706,” Soldier 706 said, perking up a little.

“Sure thing, Soloman 809!” Genji said, absolutely positive he had said the name correctly. 

While this little exchange was going on, the Generals and their Supreme Emperor had scattered around the room. Ashe was over at the Keurig machine making herself her morning (mid-afternoon) coffee; B.O.B. was standing behind her, as he almost always did. Zarya had gone to sit down over at the dining table, despite not needing to eat. As a true cyborg, Zarya could exist off the sun and a thimble of oil for decades. Symmetra was walking down the hall towards her throne, not really paying attention to any of them.

Once Sym had reached her throne he sat with her chin between her steepled hands. She rotated her throne so it was facing into the hallway, instead of out towards the sprawling metropolis that was Cairo. She watched what were essentially her disciples intermingle with the newcomer. Soldier 706 took an instant liking to Genji, possibly on account that they had both betrayed Overwatch. Ashe seemed to be alright with him, after she had gotten her morning coffee. She obviously would have preferred antagonizing the cowboy, but this metal man would do. B.O.B. and Zarya showed no emotion, and thusly Symmetra could not gauge their liking of the newbie, but she didn’t much care what either thought. She had Zarya at the very least under her command; B.O.B she was less certain about. She decided not to worry about it, and so she didn’t. 

After talking (more actually just listening) to Soldier 706 for a few minutes, Genji began to edge closer and closer to Symmetra, with Soldier edging the same distance. Eventually, Genji reached Sym’s throne and she ordered Soldier away to the city below to get takeout. 

“Speak quickly,” Symmetra said, “He won’t be long.”

“I thought I was getting rocket boots up here,” Genji said.

Symmetra smiled. “I had almost forgotten. I just thought I’d introduce you to your future co-workers.” She paused, and shifted on her throne. Her face grew contemplative, and she began speaking again, “We few are the forgotten lot. Our place has been lost to obscurity by the Author. Our true purpose in life, squandered for what? A joke‽ I won’t stand for it...“

Genji shifted on his feet, “Smh man.”

Symmetra broke from her revery. “I suppose you’re still wanting Astro Boy shoes.” She shifted again in her throne and commanded, “Zarya! Take Genji to the doc so he can be… ‘outfitted’.” 

***  
“Where are we going?” Genji asked the stone faced visor of Zarya. Zarya didn’t respond.

They had gotten into the same elevator that Symmetra and Genji had originally gotten into, and despite only traveling for a few seconds, they had ended up in a place that looked like a traditional castle dungeon, with wet brick and torches all over the wall. Genji didn’t really want a doctor to “outfit” him in a place as dank and disgusting as this, but he didn’t really have a choice. Along the walls were cells, most of which were empty. There was an occasional person or pile o’ bones lying in the cells, but they were passed quickly. 

Finally at the end of the hall was a single cell, in the middle of that cell was a door. And at the floor of that cell was what looked like a crazy man. He was certainly screaming loud enough to be crazy. He had on what once could’ve been described as clothes, and his white hair was tied in very long dreadlocks, as if his hair hadn’t been cut in 5 years. But however dirty his hair or clothes were, Genji could tell that under all the dirt and grime, the man was very handsome. The 2nd most handsome person alive, perhaps. 

Zarya slammed her fist against the wall and the man stopped screaming. He scrambled up from the floor and stared at Zarya and Genji. It took him a second, but finally, Genji recognized the man. 

“You‽” Daddy Forgiveness asked, recognizing Genji as well.

“How is this possible?” Genji asked, amazed, remembering when Daddy Forgiveness fucking died (RIP) after falling into a black hole.

At this question, Forgiveness laughed insanely. When he was done he put on an equally crazy smile and said, “Oh son; everything is possible!”


	43. Epic Tragedy

Zarya tore off Forgiveness’ cell door like the hinges were made from cotton candy. She didn’t like all the talking going on. Forgiveness knew what he was being released for; his only choice was to do his job and return back to his cage, lest Zarya punish him severely. Zarya stood menacingly in front of Forgiveness’ cage and waited for him to make his way towards his ‘Workshop’.

Forgiveness, of course, knew the drill. He scrambled out of his cage and towards one of the dank looking brick walls to Genji’s right. Forgiveness fumbled with an out of place brick for a second before he was able to slide it into place. The Legend of Zelda puzzle theme played and a secret brick door opened up in the wall. Through the door was a room of complete, almost tangible, darkness. Forgiveness shuffled into the room and fell over a couple things, making Looney Tunes sound effects along the way.

Genji and Zarya followed Forgiveness into the abyss. They stood in darkness for a while, the only light in the room coming from the torchlight in the hallway, Genji’s visor, and Zarya’s glow in the dark hair. They could still hear Forgiveness tripping over things and making Looney Tunes noises with his mouth, because he was still doing both of those things; up until the tripping stopped and so did the noises.

Out of the darkness, Forgiveness said, “ENERGISE!” and his Workshop came to life. They were in a domed room with blue lights all over. At the top of the dome was a scary looking surgery light; like the kind dentists use, except bigger. In the middle of the room was a normal looking surgery table, aside from the arm and leg cuffs built into the sides of the table. Around the whole room were cabinets and countertops. Everything was much cleaner than the rest of the dungeon; there was even a little sink where Forgiveness was frantically washing his hands.  
While Genji was looking around, Zarya was fumbling at her belt for her communicator. She was getting a call from upstairs; it was Symmetra. Once Zarya was able to get her communicator out (and not break it in the process), she accepted the call.

“Have you arrived?” Symmetra asked with a mouthful of Greek takeout. 

Zarya said nothing. It was Genji’s turn to respond. “We have arrived, but-” he tried to say.

“Good,” Symmetra said with finality. Then she fiddled with something on her wrist and continued, “I’ve sent the good doctor the specs I personally designed.”

“But-” Genji tried to say again.

“You’re in good hands,” Symmetra interrupted again. Her hologram turned to face Forgiveness and said, “Or else.” Forgiveness blubbered madly to himself and continued prepping the surgery table.

Symmetra took another bite of the Greek takeout (which she had gotten from a cute little place down in Cairo that wasn’t absolutely destroyed in her conquest of the city 5 years ago), and said, “You can come back Zarya. There are soldiers down there anyway. He won’t do anything.” Zarya stared silently at the communicator, indicating her assent to Symmetra’s order. She shut off the communicator, stared menacingly at both of the men (but especially at Forgiveness) and left. 

Genji and Forgiveness were left alone in the surgical dome. Forgiveness relaxed a little bit; he was safe for just a while longer. He disinfected his equipment a little less fervently than before. He seemed to stare at his equipment as it Genji wasn’t even there. He looked contemplative, as if he were planning out a surgery (which he was).

Genji stood there making the polite “:|” face while trying not to be awkward. He could feel the awkwardness seeping into the room, and to dispel it he said, “So uhhhhhh-” and was once again interrupted.

“Lay down there on the table, Genji,” Forgiveness said, in a cold tone that didn’t at all reflect his insanity just a few moments before. However, it wasn’t absolutely hate filled either, like the Forgiveness Genji had remembered being sucked into the black hole (rip). Forgiveness’ tone was weirdly melancholic, as if he had gone through a major mood swing in moments. 

Genji did as he was told, not deigning to latch the arm and leg cuffs because why would he? He lay down on the table, looking up into the blinding blue light coming from the surgery light, and he felt his left arm be clamped.

Preemptively, Forgiveness said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be sedated. It’s more for my sake than yours, you understand.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Genji asked, becoming frantic himself. 

Forgiveness grunted, faffed about with a holoscreen which had appeared in front of him, and said, “A basic 80-12 K upgrade procedural… with ‘rocket boots’.” As he said rocket boots, he clamped down on Genji’s right arm. “Shouldn’t take more than a few hours. You’ll have to take a few days to recover, of course, but you’ll be up and around by the time Symmetra needs you.” 

Genji’s nerves weren’t exactly quelled, but his curiosity had begun to overtake his fear. He had begun to wonder just how Forgiveness had survived the black hole (ripston29), as well as other things. However, he began with the question that had just occurred to him. “Why are you not crazy like you were 13.88 seconds ago?” Genji asked.

Forgiveness stopped, just about to latch Genji’s right leg, and let out a quick (but perfectly sane) laugh. “It’s mostly an act,” Forgiveness said, “It keeps me alive if she thinks I’m not in possession of my full mental capacity.” He latched Genji’s right leg. 

“‘Mostly’?” Genji asked.

Forgiveness let out another quick huff and said, “I’ve been in this Dimension for 5 years. You’d have to be crazy not to go a little crazy!”

“Alright,” Genji said, contemplating. After a few moments, and another cuff latched, Genji asked, “If you are alive, where are your daughters?” referring to the 4 Mercys that jumped into the black hole, dragging Forgiveness with them (ripperoni87).

Forgiveness’ face soured. “My daughters… it’s been so long since I’ve thought of them.” Forgiveness took a step back, not really doing anything. After a few moments of silence, he said, “They’re the whole reason I’m in this mess….” He didn’t say it with any malice or hatred; it was just a statement. 

“What happened to you all?” Genji asked, feeling like he was both satisfying his curiosity while also putting off a surgery he still wasn’t keen on getting. 

“We ended up here,” Forgiveness said, leaning over the sink. “5 doctors in a land without anything close to our powers… we could have convinced everyone around that we were Christ incarnate, as gullible as everyone in this bleeding Dimension are!” He sighed, “Alas, Symmetra had different plans. She was able to recruit all of us- the wily woman- and from there it all went to Hell.”

Forgiveness dramatically turned away from the sink, simultaneously tying his hair back. “I suppose everything was fine until Grace….” he said, before pausing suddenly. Out of nowhere, he said to Genji, “I do have to be upfront. The procedure has a non-zero chance of fatality. It’s low, of course. But...” he said before pausing again. Through teary eyes and a dry throat, he was able to say, “My dear Grace….”

Genji and Forgiveness remained in silence for a while, both contemplating what was to come. Neither could back out now, lest they both lose their chance at surviving the coming months. Genji wasn’t exactly excited that he could die in this rocket boot procedure, but he was in the hands of a Mercy (reminder that Forgiveness couldn’t even do anything beyond normal doctor stuff, lmao) so he didn’t worry that much. 

Forgiveness put on a mask and scrubs, and proceded to wash his hands again. He put latex gloves on his perfectly manicured hands just in case.

“Are you prepared?” Forgiveness asked. 

“Nope!” Genji said.

“Unfortunate,” Forgiveness replied. He had already stuck Genji’s fleshy bits with a sleepy needle of ouchy.

“For what it’s worth,” Forgiveness said, “I hope you survive.” 

Genji blacked out.


End file.
